University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


3*- 
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.  to      \^ 


• 


ESSAYS. 


ESSAYS: 


BY 


R.     W.     EMERSON 


BOSTON: 

JAMES    MUNROE    AND    COMPANY 


MDCCCXLI. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1841 ,  by 
JAMES  MUNROE  &  Co.,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District 
Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


BOSTON: 
PRINTED    BY    FREEMAN    AND    BOLLES, 

WASHINGTON   STREET. 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAY  I. 

Page. 
BISTORT 3 

ESSAY   II. 
SELF  -  RELIANCE 35 

ESSAY  III. 
COMPENSATION 75 

ESSAY  IV. 
SPIRITUAL  LAWS 105 

ESSAY  V. 
LOVE 137 

ESSAY  VI. 
FRIENDSHIP 157 

ESSAY  VII. 
PRUDENCE 181 

ESSAY  VIIL 
HEROISM 201 


CONTENTS. 

Page. 
ESSAY  IX. 

THE  OVER- SOUL 219 

ESSAY  X. 
CIRCLES 247 

ESSAY  XI. 
INTELLECT 237 

ESSAY  XII. 
ART..  ...287 


HISTORY. 


There  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  Soul  that  maketh  all : 
And  where  it  cometh,  all  things  are  ; 
And  it  cometh  every  where. 


I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 

Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year, 

Of  Caesar's  hand,  and  Plato's  brain, 

Of  Lord  Christ's  heart,  and  Shakspeare's  strain. 


ESSAY   I. 
HISTORY 


THERE  is  one  mind  common  to  all  individual  men. 
Every  man  is  an  inlet  to  the  same  and  to  all  of  the 
same.  He  that  is  once  admitted  to  the  right  of  reason 
is  made  a  freeman  of  the  whole  estate.  What  Plato 
has  thought,  he  may  think ;  what  a  saint  has  felt,  he 
may  feel ;  what  at  any  time  has  befallen  any  man, 
he  can  understand.  Who  hath  access  to  this  universal 
mind,  is  a  party  to  all  that  is  or  can  be  done,  for  this 
is  the  only  and  sovereign  agent. 

Of  the  works  of  this  mind  history  is  the  record. 
Its  genius  is  illustrated  by  the  entire  series  of  days. 
Man  is  explicable  by  nothing  less  than  all  his  history. 
Without  hurry,  without  rest,  the  human  spirit  goes 
forth  from  the  beginning  to  embody  every  faculty, 
every  thought,  every  emotion,  which  belongs  to  it  in 
appropriate  events.  But  always  the  thought  is  prior 
to  the  fact ;  all  the  facts  of  history  preexist  in  the 
mind  as  laws.  Each  law  in  turn  is  made  by  circum- 


4  ESSAY    I. 

stances  predominant,  and  the  limits  of  nature  give 
power  to  but  one  at  a  time.  A  man  is  the  whole 
encyclopaedia  of  facts.  The  creation  of  a  thousand 
forests  is  in  one  acorn,  and  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome, 
Gaul,  Britain,  America,  lie  folded  already  in  the  first 
man.  Epoch  after  epoch,  camp,  kingdom,  empire, 
republic,  democracy,  are  merely  the  application  of 
his  manifold  spirit  to  the  manifold  world. 

This  human  mind  wrote  history  and  this  must  read 
it.  The  Sphinx  must  solve  her  own  riddle.  If  the 
whole  of  history  is  in  one  man,  it  is  all  to  be  ex 
plained  from  individual  experience.  There  is  a  re 
lation  between  the  hours  of  our  life  and  the  centuries 
of  time.  As  the  air  I  breathe  is  drawn  from  the 
great  repositories  of  nature,  as  the  light  on  my  book 
is  yielded  by  a  star  a  hundred  millions  of  miles 
distant,  as  the  poise  of  my  body  depends  on  the 
equilibrium  of  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces,  so 
the  hours  should  be  instructed  by  the  ages,  and  the 
ages  explained  by  the  hours.  Of  the  universal  mind 
each  individual  man  is  one  more  incarnation.  All  its 
properties  consist  in  him.  Every  step  in  his  private 
experience  flashes  a  light  on  what  great  bodies  of 
men  have  done,  and  the  crises  of  his  life  refer  to 
national  crises.  Every  revolution  was  first  a  thought 
in  one  man's  mind,  and  when  the  same  thought  occurs 
to  another  man,  it  is  the  key  to  that  era.  Every 
reform  was  once  a  private  opinion,  and  when  it  shall 
be  a  private  opinion  again,  it  will  solve  the  problem 
of  the  age.  The  fact  narrated  must  correspond  to 
something  in  me  to  be  credible  or  intelligible.  We 


HISTORY.  5 

as  we  read  must  become  Greeks,  Romans,  Turks, 
priest,  and  king,  martyr  and  executioner,  must  fasten 
these  images  to  some  reality  in  our  secret  experience, 
or  we  shall  see  nothing,  learn  nothing,  keep  nothing. 
What  befell  Asdrubal  or  Ca3sar  Borgia,  is  as  much  an 
illustration  of  the  mind's  powers  and  depravations  as 
what  has  befallen  us.  Each  new  law  and  political 
movement  has  meaning  for  you.  Stand  before  each 
of  its  tablets  and  say,  '  Here  is  one  of  my  coverings. 
Under  this  fantastic,  or  odious,  or  graceful  mask,  did 
my  Proteus  nature  hide  itself.'  This  remedies  the 
defect  of  our  too  great  nearness  to  ourselves.  This 
throws  our  own  actions  into  perspective  :  and  as  crabs, 
goats,  scorpions,  the  balance  and  the  waterpot,  lose 
all  their  meanness  when  hung  as  signs  in  the  zodiack, 
so  I  can  see  my  own  vices  without  heat  in  the  distant 
persons  of  Solomon,  Alcibiades,  and  Catiline. 

It  is  this  universal  nature  which  gives  worth  to 
particular  men  and  things.  Human  life  as  con 
taining  this  is  mysterious  and  inviolable,  and  we 
hedge  it  round  with  penalties  and  laws.  All  laws 
derive  hence  their  ultimate  reason,  all  express  at  last 
reverence  for  some  command  of  this  supreme  illim 
itable  essence.  Property  also  holds  of  the  soul, 
covers  great  spiritual  facts,  and  instinctively  we  at 
first  hold  to  it  with  swords  and  laws,  and  wide  and 
complex  combinations.  The  obscure  consciousness 
of  this  fact  is  the  light  of  all  our  day,  the  claim  of 
claims  ;  the  plea  for  education,  for  justice,  for  charity, 
the  foundation  of  friendship  and  love,  and  of  the 
heroism  and  grandeur  which  belongs  to  acts  of  self- 


6  ESSAY    I. 

reliance.  It  is  remarkable  that  involuntarily  we  al 
ways  read  as  superior  beings.  Universal  history, 
the  poets,  the  romancers,  do  not  in  their  stateliest 
pictures,  —  in  the  sacerdotal,  the  imperial  palaces,  in 
the  triumphs  of  will,  or  of  genius,  anywhere  lose  our 
ear,  anywhere  make  us  feel  that  we  intrude,  that  this 
is  for  our  betters,  but  rather  is  it  true  that  in  their 
grandest  strokes,  there  we  feel  most  at  home.  All 
that  Shakspeare  says  of  the  king,  yonder  slip  of  a 
boy  that  reads  in  the  corner,  feels  to  be  true  of  him 
self.  We  sympathize  in  the  great  moments  of  his 
tory,  in  the  great  discoveries,  the  great  resistances, 
the  great  prosperities  of  men ;  —  because  there  law 
was  enacted,  the  sea  was  searched,  the  land  was 
found,  or  the  blow  was  struck  for  MS,  as  we  ourselves 
in  that  place  would  have  done  or  applauded. 

So  is  it  in  respect  to  condition  and  character.  We 
honor  the  rich  because  they  have  externally  the  free 
dom,  power  and  grace  which  we  feel  to  be  proper  to 
man,  proper  to  us.  So  all  that  is  said  of  the  wise  man 
by  stoic  or  oriental  or  modern  essayist,  describes  to 
each  man  his  own  idea,  describes  his  unattained  but 
attainable  self.  All  literature  writes  the  character  of 
the  wise  man.  All  books,  monuments,  pictures,  con 
versation,  are  portraits  in  which  the  wise  man  finds 
the  lineaments  he  is  forming.  The  silent  and  the 
loud  praise  him,  and  accost  him,  and  he  is  stimulated 
wherever  he  moves  as  by  personal  allusions.  A  wise 
and  good  soul,  therefore,  never  needs  look  for  allu 
sions  personal  and  laudatory  in  discourse.  He  hears 
the  commendation,  not  of  himself,  but  more  sweet,  of 


HISTORY.  7 

that  character  he  seeks,  in  every  word  that  is  said 
concerning  character,  yea,  further,  in  every  fact  that 
befalls,  —  in  the  running  river,  and  the  rustling  corn. 
Praise  is  looked,  homage  tendered,  love  flows  from 
mute  nature,  from  the  mountains  and  the  lights  of  the 
firmament. 

These  hints,  dropped  as  it  were  from  sleep  and 
night,  let  us  use  in  broad  day.  The  student  is  to  read 
history  actively  and  not  passively  ;  to  esteem  his  own 
life  the  text,  and  books  the  commentary.  Thus  com 
pelled,  the  muse  of  history  will  utter  oracles,  as  never 
to  those  who  do  not  respect  themselves.  I  have 
no  expectation  that  any  man  will  read  history  aright, 
who  thinks  that  what  was  done  in  a  remote  age,  by 
men  whose  names  have  resounded  far,  has  any  deeper 
sense  than  what  he  is  doing  to-day. 

The  world  exists  for  the  education  of  each  man. 
There  is  no  age  or  state  of  society  or  mode  of  action 
in  history,  to  which  there  is  not  somewhat  corres 
ponding  in  his  life.  Every  thing  tends  in  a  most  won 
derful  manner  to  abbreviate  itself  and  yield  its  whole 
virtue  to  him.  He  should  see  that  he  can  live  all 
history  in  his  own  person.  He  must  sit  at  home  with 
might  and  main,  and  not  suffer  himself  to  be  bullied 
by  kings  or  empires,  but  know  that  he  is  greater  than 
all  the  geography  and  all  the  government  of  the  world ; 
he  must  transfer  the  point  of  view  from  which  history- 
is  commonly  read,  from  Rome  and  Athens  and  London 
to  himself,  and  not  deny  his  conviction  that  he  is  the 
Court,  and  if  England  or  Egypt  have  any  thing  to  say 
to  him,  he  will  try  the  case  ;  if  not,  let  them  forever 


8  ESSAY    I. 

be  silent.  He  must  attain  and  maintain  that  lofty 
sight  where  facts  yield  their  secret  sense,  and  poetry 
and  annals  are  alike.  The  instinct  of  the  mind,  the 
purpose  of  nature  betrays  itself  in  the  use  we  make 
of  the  signal  narrations  of  history.  Time  dissipates 
to  shining  ether  the  solid  angularity  of  facts.  No 
anchor,  no  cable,  no  fences  avail  to  keep  a  fact  a 
fact.  Babylon  and  Troy  and  Tyre  and  even  early 
Rome  are  passing  already  into  fiction.  The  Garden 
of  Eden,  the  Sun  standing  still  in  Gibeon,  is  poetry 
thenceforward  to  all  nations.  Who  cares  what  the 
fact  was,  when  we  have  thus  made  a  constellation  of 
it  to  hang  in  heaven  an  immortal  sign  ?  London  and 
Paris  and  New  York  must  go  the  same  way.  "  What 
is  History,"  said  Napoleon,  "  but  a  fable  agreed 
upon  ?  '  This  life  of  ours  is  stuck  round  with  Egypt, 
Greece,  Gaul,  England,  War,  Colonization,  Church, 
Court,  and  Commerce,  as  with  so  many  flowers  and 
wild  ornaments  grave  and  gay.  I  will  not  make  more 
account  of  them.  I  believe  in  Eternity.  I  can  find 
Greece,  Palestine,  Italy,  Spain,  and  the  Islands,  —  the 
genius  and  creative  principle  of  each  and  of  all  eras 
in  my  own  mind. 

We  are  always  coming  up  with  the  facts  that  have 
moved  us  in  history  in  our  private  experience,  and  ver 
ifying  them  here.  All  history  becomes  subjective ; 
in  other  words,  there  is  properly  no  History  ;  only 
Biography.  Every  soul  must  know  the  whole  lesson 
for  itself —  must  go  over  the  whole  ground.  What  it 
does  not  see,  what  it  does  not  live,  it  will  not  know. 
What  the  former  age  has  epitomized  into  a  formula 


HISTORY.  9 

or  rule  for  manipular  convenience,  it  will  lose  all  the 
good  of  verifying  for  itself,  by  means  of  the  wall  of 
that  rule.  Somewhere  or  other,  some  time  or  other, 
it  will  demand  and  find  compensation  for  that  loss  by 
doing  the  work  itself.  Ferguson  discovered  many 
things  in  astronomy  which  had  long  been  known.  The 
better  for  him. 

History  must  be  this  or  it  is  nothing.  Every  law 
which  the  state  enacts,  indicates  a  fact  in  human  na 
ture  ;  that  is  all.  We  must  in  our  own  nature  see 
the  necessary  reason  for  every  fact,  —  see  how  it  could 
and  must  be.  So  stand  before  every  public,  every 
private  work  ;  before  an  oration  of  Burke,  before  a 
victory  of  Napoleon,  before  a  martyrdom  of  Sir  Tho 
mas  More,  of  Sidney,  of  Marmaduke  Robinson,  be 
fore  a  French  Reign  of  Terror,  and  a  Salem  hanging 
of  witches,  before  a  fanatic  Revival,  and  the  An 
imal  Magnetism  in  Paris,  or  in  Providence.  We  as 
sume  that  we  under  like  influence  should  be  alike  af 
fected,  and  should  achieve  the  like  ;  and  we  aim  to 
master  intellectually  the  steps,  and  reach  the  same 
height  or  the  same  degradation  that  our  fellow,  our 
proxy  has  done. 

All  inquiry  into  antiquity,  —  all  curiosity  respecting 
the  pyramids,  the  excavated  cities,  Stonehenge,  the 
Ohio  Circles,  Mexico,  Memphis,  is  the  desire  to 
do  away  this  wild,  savage  and  preposterous  There 
or  Then,  and  introduce  in  its  place  the  Here  and 
the  Now.  It  is  to  banish  the  Not  me,  and  supply 
the  Me.  It  is  to  abolish  difference  and  restore 
unity.  Belzoni  digs  and  measures  in  the  mummy- 
1* 


10  ESSAY    I. 

pits  and  pyramids  of  Thebes,  until  he  can  see  the  end 
of  the  difference  between  the  monstrous  work  and 
himself.  When  he  has  satisfied  himself,  in  general 
and  in  detail,  that  it  was  made  by  such  a  person 
as  himself,  so  armed  and  so  motived,  and  to  ends 
to  which  he  himself  in  given  circumstances  should 
also  have  worked,  the  problem  is  then  solved;  his 
thought  lives  along  the  whole  line  of  temples  and 
sphinxes  and  catacombs,  passes  through  them  all  like 
a  creative  soul,  with  satisfaction,  and  they  live  again 
to  the  mind,  or  are  now. 

A  Gothic  cathedral  affirms  that  it  was  done  by  us, 
and  not  done  by  us.  Surely  it  was  by  man,  but  we 
find  it  not  in  our  man.  But  we  apply  ourselves  to 
the  history  of  its  production.  We  put  ourselves  into 
the  place  and  historical  state  of  the  builder.  We  re 
member  the  forest  dwellers,  the  first  temples,  the  ad 
herence  to  the  first  type,  and  the  decoration  of  it  as 
the  wealth  of  the  nation  increased  ;  the  value  which 
is  given  to  wood  by  carving  led  to  the  carving  over 
the  whole  mountain  of  stone  of  a  cathedral.  When 
we  have  gone  through  this  process,  and  added  thereto 
the  Catholic  Church,  its  cross,  its  music,  its  proces 
sions,  its  Saints'  days  and  image- worship,  we  have,  as 
it  were,  been  the  man  that  made  the  minster ;  we 
have  seen  how  it  could  and  must  be.  We  have  the 
sufficient  reason. 

The  difference  between  men  is  in  their  principle  of 
association.  Some  men  classify  objects  by  color  and 
size  and  other  accidents  of  appearance  ;  others  by 
intrinsic  likeness,  or  by  the  relation  of  cause  and 


HISTORY.  11 

effect.  The  progress  of  the  intellect  consists  in  the 
clearer  vision  of  causes,  which  overlooks  surface  dif 
ferences.  To  the  poet,  to  the  philosopher,  to  the 
saint,  all  things  are  friendly  and  sacred,  all  events  pro 
fitable,  all  days  holy,  all  men  divine.  For  the  eye  is 
fastened  on  the  life,  and  slights  the  circumstance. 
Every  chemical  substance,  every  plant,  every  animal 
in  its  growth,  teaches  the  unity  of  cause,  the  variety  of 
appearance. 

Why,  being  as  we  are  surrounded  by  this  all-cre 
ating  nature,  soft  and  fluid  as  a  cloud  or  the  air,  should 
we  be  such  hard  pedants,  and  magnify  a  few  forms  ? 
Why  should  we  make  account  of  time,  or  of  magni 
tude,  or  of  form  ?  The  soul  knows  them  not,  and  gen 
ius,  obeying  its  law,  knows  how  to  play  with  them  as 
a  young  child  plays  with  greybeards  and  in  churches. 
Genius  studies  the  causal  thought,  and  far  back  in 
the  womb  of  things,  sees  the  rays  parting  from  one 
orb,  that  diverge  ere  they  fall  by  infinite  diameters. 
Genius  watches  the  monad  through  all  his  masks  as 
he  performs  the  metempsychosis  of  nature.  Genius 
detects  through  the  fly,  through  the  caterpillar, 
through  the  grub,  through  the  egg,  the  constant  type 
of  the  individual ;  through  countless  individuals  the 
fixed  species ;  through  many  species  the  genus ; 
through  all  genera  the  steadfast  type  ;  through  all 
the  kingdoms  of  organized  life  the  eternal  unity. 
Nature  is  a  mutable  cloud,  which  is  always  and  never 
the  same.  She  casts  the  same  thought  into  troops  of 
forms,  as  a  poet  makes  twenty  fables  with  one  moral. 
Beautifully  shines  a  spirit  through  the  bruteness 


12  ESSAY    I. 

and  toughness  of  matter.  Alone  omnipotent,  it  con 
verts  all  things  to  its  own  end.  The  adamant  streams 
into  softest  but  precise  form  before  it,  but,  whilst  I 
look  at  it,  its  outline  and  texture  are  changed  alto 
gether.  Nothing  is  so  fleeting  as  form.  Yet  never 
does  it  quite  deny  itself.  In  man  we  still  trace  the  ru 
diments  or  hints  of  all  that  we  esteem  badges  of  ser 
vitude  in  the  lower  races,  yet  in  him  they  enhance  his 
nobleness  and  grace  ;  as  lo,  in  JEschylus,  transformed 
to  a  cow,  offends  the  imagination,  but  how  changed 
when  as  Isis  in  Egypt  she  meets  Jove,  a  beautiful 
woman,  with  nothing  of  the  metamorphosis  left  but  the 
lunar  horns  as  the  splendid  ornament  of  her  brows. 
The  identity  of  history  is  equally  intrinsic,  the 
diversity  equally  obvious.  There  is  at  the  surface 
infinite  variety  of  things  ;  at  the  centre  there  is  sim 
plicity  and  unity  of  cause.  How  many  are  the 
acts  of  one  man  in  which  we  recognise  the  same 
character.  See  the  variety  of  the  sources  of  our  in 
formation  in  respect  to  the  Greek  genius.  Thus  at 
first  we  have  the  civil  history  of  that  people,  as 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  Xenophon,  Plutarch  have 
given  it  —  a  very  sufficient  account  of  what  manner 
of  persons  they  were,  and  what  they  did.  Then  we 
have  the  same  soul  expressed  for  us  again  in  their 
literature  ;  in  poems,  drama,  and  philosophy  :  a  very 
complete  form.  Then  we  have  it  once  more  in  their 
architecture,  —  the  purest  sensuous  beauty,  —  the  per 
fect  medium  never  overstepping  the  limit  of  charming 
propriety  and  grace.  Then  we  have  it  once  more  in 
sculpture,  —  "  the  tongue  on  the  balance  of  expres- 


HISTORY.  13 

sion,"  those  forms  in  every  action,  at  every  age  of 
life,  ranging  through  all  the  scale  of  condition,  from 
god  to  beast,  and  never  transgressing  the  ideal  serenity, 
but  in  convulsive  exertion  the  liege  of  order  and  of 
law.  Thus,  of  the  genius  of  one  remarkable  people, 
we  have  a  fourfold  representation,  —  the  most  various 
expression  of  one  moral  thing :  and  to  the  senses  what 
more  unlike  than  an  ode  of  Pindar,  a  marble  Centaur, 
the  Peristyle  of  the  Parthenon,  and  the  last  actions  of 
Phocion  ?  Yet  do  these  varied  external  expressions 
proceed  from  one  national  mind. 

Every  one  must  have  observed  faces  and  forms 
which,  without  any  resembling  feature,  make  a  like 
impression  on  the  beholder.  A  particular  picture  or 
copy  of  verses,  if  it  do  not  awaken  the  same  train  of 
images,  will  yet  superinduce  the  same  sentiment  as 
some  wild  mountain  walk,  although  the  resemblance 
is  nowise  obvious  to  the  senses,  but  is  occult  and  out 
of  the  reach  of  the  understanding.  Nature  is  an 
endless  combination  and  repetition  of  a  very  few 
laws.  She  hums  the  old  well  known  air  through 
innumerable  variations. 

Nature  is  full  of  a  sublime  family  likeness  through 
out  her  works.  She  delights  in  startling  us  with 
resemblances  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  I 
have  seen  the  head  of  an  old  sachem  of  the  forest, 
which  at  once  reminded  the  eye  of  a  bald  mountain 
summit,  and  the  furrows  of  the  brow  suggested  the 
strata  of  the  rock.  There  are  men  whose  manners 
have  the  same  essential  splendor  as  the  simple  and 
awful  sculpture  on  the  friezes  of  the  Parthenon, 


14  ESSAY    I. 

and  the  remains  of  the  earliest  Greek  art.  And 
there  are  compositions  of  the  same  strain  to  be  found 
in  the  books  of  all  ages.  What  is  Guide's  Ros- 
pigliosi  Aurora  but  a  morning  thought,  as  the  horses 
in  it  are  only  a  morning  cloud.  If  any  one  will  but 
take  pains  to  observe  the  variety  of  actions  to  which 
he  is  equally  inclined  in  certain  moods  of  mind,  and 
those  to  which  he  is  averse,  he  will  see  how  deep  is 
the  chain  of  affinity. 

A  painter  told  me  that  nobody  could  draw  a  tree 
without  in  some  sort  becoming  a  tree ;  or  draw  a 
child  by  studying  the  outlines  of  its  form  merely, — 
but,  by  watching  for  a  time  his  motions  and  plays,  the 
painter  enters  into  his  nature,  and  can  then  draw  him 
at  will  in  every  attitude.  So  Roos  "  entered  into  the 
inmost  nature  of  a  sheep."  I  knew  a  draughtsman 
employed  in  a  public  survey,  who  found  that  he  could 
not  sketch  the  rocks  until  their  geological  structure 
was  first  explained  to  him. 

What  is  to  be  inferred  from  these  facts  but  this ; 
that  in  a  certain  state  of  thought  is  the  common  ori 
gin  of  very  diverse  works  ?  It  is  the  spirit  and  not 
the  fact  that  is  identical.  By  descending  far  down 
into  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and  not  primarily  by  a 
painful  acquisition  of  many  manual  skills,  the  artist 
attains  the  power  of  awakening  other  souls  to  a  given 
activity. 

It  has  been  said  that  "  common  souls  pay  with 
what  they  do  ;  nobler  souls  with  that  which  they  are." 
And  why  ?  Because  a  soul,  living  from  a  great  depth 
pf  being,  awakens  in  us  by  its  actions  and  words,  by 


HISTORY.  15 

its  very  looks  and  manners,  the  same  power  and 
beauty  that  a  gallery  of  sculpture,  or  of  pictures, 
are  wont  to  animate. 

Civil  history,  natural  history,  the  history  of  art, 
and  the  history  of  literature, — all  must  be  explained 
from  individual  history,  or  must  remain  words.  There 
is  nothing  but  is  related  to  us,  nothing  that  does  not 
interest  us  —  kingdom,  college,  tree,  horse,  or  iron 
shoe,  the  roots  of  all  things  are  in  man.  It  is  in  the 
soul  that  architecture  exists.  Santa  Croce  and  the 
Dome  of  St.  Peter's  are  lame  copies  after  a  divine 
model.  Strasburg  Cathedral  is  a  material  counterpart 
of  the  soul  of  Erwin  of  Steinbach.  The  true  poem 
i-s  the  poet's  mind  ;  the  true  ship  is  the  ship-builder. 
In  the  man,  could  we  lay  him  open,  we  should  see 
the  sufficient  reason  for  the  last  flourish  and  tendril 
of  his  work,  as  every  spine  and  tint  in  the  sea-shell 
preexist  in  the  secreting  organs  of  the  fish.  The 
whole  of  heraldry  and  of  chivalry  is  in  courtesy.  A 
man  of  fine  manners  shall  pronounce  your  name  with 
all  the  ornament  that  titles  of  nobility  could  ever  add. 

The  trivial  experience  of  every  day  is  always  ver 
ifying  some  old  prediction  to  us,  and  converting  into 
things  for  us  also  the  words  and  signs  which  we  had 
heard  and  seen  without  heed.  Let  me  add  a  few  ex 
amples,  such  as  fall  within  the  scope  of  every  man's 
observation,  of  trivial  facts  which  go  to  illustrate  great 
and  conspicuous  facts. 

A  lady,  with  whom  I  was  riding  in  the  forest,  said 
to  me,  that  the  woods  always  seemed  to  her  to  wait, 
as  if  the  genii  who  inhabit  them  suspended  their 


16  ESSAY    I. 

deeds  until  the  wayfarer  has  passed  onward.  This 
is  precisely  the  thought  which  poetry  has  celebrated 
in  the  dance  of  the  fairies  which  breaks  off  on  the 
approach  of  human  feet.  The  man  who  has  seen 
the  rising  moon  break  out  of  the  clouds  at  midnight, 
has  been  present  like  an  archangel  at  the  creation  of 
light  and  of  the  world.  I  remember  that  being  abroad 
one  summer  day,  my  companion  pointed  out  to  me  a 
broad  cloud,  which  might  extend  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
parallel  to  the  horizon,  quite  accurately  in  the  form 
of  a  cherub  as  painted  over  churches,  —  a  round 
block  in  the  centre  which  it  was  easy  to  animate 
with  eyes  and  mouth,  supported  on  either  side  by 
wide  stretched  symmetrical  wings.  What  appears 
once  in  the  atmosphere  may  appear  often,  and  it  was 
undoubtedly  the  archetype  of  that  familiar  ornament. 
I  have  seen  in  the  sky  a  chain  of  summer  lightning 
which  at  once  revealed  to  me  that  the  Greeks  drew 
from  nature  when  they  painted  the  thunderbolt  in  the 
hand  of  Jove.  I  have  seen  a  snow-drift  along  the 
sides  of  the  stone  wall  which  obviously  gave  the  idea 
of  the  common  architectural  scroll  to  abut  a  tower. 

By  simply  throwing  ourselves  into  new  circum 
stances  we  do  continually  invent  anew  the  orders  and 
the  ornaments  of  architecture,  as  we  see  how  each 
people  merely  decorated  its  primitive  abodes.  The 
Doric  temple  still  presents  the  semblance  of  the 
wooden  cabin  in  which  the  Dorian  dwelt.  The  Chi 
nese  pagoda  is  plainly  a  Tartar  tent.  The  Indian 
and  Egyptian  temples  still  betray  the  mounds  and 
subterranean  houses  of  their  forefathers.  "  The 


HISTORY.  17 

custom  of  making  houses  and  tombs  in  the  living 
rock,"  (says  Heeren,  in  his  Researches  on  the  Ethi 
opians)  "  determined  very  naturally  the  principal 
character  of  the  Nubian  Egyptian  architecture  to  the 
colossal  form  which  it  assumed.  In  these  caverns 
already  prepared  by  nature,  the  eye  was  accustomed 
to  dwell  on  huge  shapes  and  masses,  so  that  when  art 
came  to  the  assistance  of  nature,  it  could  not  move  on 
a  small  scale  without  degrading  itself.  What  would 
statues  of  the  usual  size,  or  neat  porches  and  wings 
have  been,  associated  with  those  gigantic  halls  be 
fore  which  only  Colossi  could  sit  as  watchmen,  or 
lean  on  the  pillars  of  the  interior?" 

The  Gothic  church  plainly  originated  in  a  rude 
adaptation  of  the  forest  trees  with  all  their  boughs  to 
a  festal  or  solemn  arcade,  as  the  bands  about  the  cleft 
pillars  still  indicate  the  green  withes  that  tied  them. 
No  one  can  walk  in  a  road  cut  through  pine  woods, 
without  being  struck  with  the  architectural  appearance 
of  the  grove,  especially  in  winter,  when  the  bareness 
of  all  other  trees  shows  the  low  arch  of  the  Saxons. 
In  the  woods  in  a  winter  afternoon  one  will  see  as 
readily  the  origin  of  the  stained  glass  window  with 
which  the  Gothic  cathedrals  are  adorned,  in  the  colors 
of  the  western  sky  seen  through  the  bare  and  crossing 
branches  of  the  forest.  Nor  can  any  lover  of  nature 
enter  the  old  piles  of  Oxford  and  the  English  cathe 
drals  without  feeling  that  the  forest  overpowered  the 
mind  of  the  builder,  and  that  his  chisel,  his  saw,  and 
plane  still  reproduced  its  ferns,  its  spikes  of  flowers, 
its  locust,  its  pine,  its  oak,  its  fir,  its  spruce. 


18  ESSAY    I. 

The  Gothic  cathedral  is  a  blossoming  in  stone  sub 
dued  by  the  insatiable  demand  of  harmony  in  man. 
The  mountain  of  granite  blooms  into  an  eternal 
flower  with  the  lightness  and  delicate  finish  as  well 
as  the  aerial  proportions  and  perspective  of  vegetable 
beauty. 

In  like  manner  all  public  facts  are  to  be  individ 
ualized,  all  private  facts  are  to  be  generalized.  Then 
at  once  History  becomes  fluid  and  true,  arid  Biogra 
phy  deep  and  sublime.  As  the  Persian  imitated  in 
the  slender  shafts  and  capitals  of  his  architecture  the 
stem  and  flower  of  the  lotus  and  palm,  so  the  Persian 
Court  in  its  magnificent  era  never  gave  over  the 
Nomadism  of  its  barbarous  tribes,  but  travelled  from 
Ecbatana,  where  the  spring  was  spent,  to  Susa  in 
summer,  and  to  Babylon  for  the  winter. 

In  the  early  history  of  Asia  and  Africa,  Nomadism 
and  Agriculture  are  the  two  antagonist  facts.  The 
geography  of  Asia  and  of  Africa  necessitated  a  no 
madic  life.  But  the  nomads  were  the  terror  of  all 
those  whom  the  soil  or  the  advantages  of  a  market 
had  induced  to  build  towns.  Agriculture  therefore 
was  a  religious  injunction  because  of  the  perils  of  the 
state  from  nomadism.  And  in  these  late  and  civil 
countries  of  England  and  America,  the  contest  of 
these  propensities  still  fights  out  the  old  battle  in  each 
individual.  We  are  all  rovers  and  all  fixtures  by 
turns,  and  pretty  rapid  turns.  The  nomads  of  Africa 
are  constrained  to  wander  by  the  attacks  of  the  gad 
fly,  which  drives  the  cattle  mad,  and  so  compels  the 
tribe  to  emigrate  in  the  rainy  season  and  drive  off  the 


HISTORY.  19 

cattle  to  the  higher  sandy  regions.  The  nomads  of 
Asia  follow  the  pasturage  from  month  to  month.  In 
America  and  Europe  the  nomadism  is  of  trade  and 
curiosity.  A  progress  certainly  from  the  gad-fly  of 
Astaboras  to  the  Anglo  and  Italo-mania  of  Boston 
Bay.  The  difference  between  men  in  this  respect  is 
the  faculty  of  rapid  domestication,  the  power  to  find 
his  chair  and  bed  everywhere,  which  one  man  has, 
and  another  has  not.  Some  men  have  so  much  of 
the  Indian  left,  have  constitutionally  such  habits  of 
accommodation,  that  at  sea,  or  in  the  forest,  or  in  the 
snow,  they  sleep  as  warm,  and  dine  with  as  good  ap 
petite,  and  associate  as  happily,  as  in  their  own  house. 
And  to  push  this  old  fact  still  one  degree  nearer,  we 
may  find  it  a  representative  of  a  permanent  fact 
in  human  nature.  The  intellectual  nomadism  is  the 
faculty  of  objectiveness  or  of  eyes  which  everywhere 
feed  themselves.  Who  hath  such  eyes,  everywhere 
falls  into  easy  relations  with  his  fellow-men.  Every 
man,  every  thing  is  a  prize,  a  study,  a  property  to 
him,  and  this  love  smooths  his  brow,  joins  him  to 
men  and  makes  him  beautiful  and  beloved  in  their 
sight.  His  house  is  a  wagon  ;  he  roams  through  all 
latitudes  as  easily  as  a  Calmuc. 

Every  thing  the  individual  sees  without  him,  cor 
responds  to  his  states  of  mind,  and  every  thing  is  in 
turn  intelligible  to  him,  as  his  onward  thinking  leads 
him  into  the  truth  to  which  that  fact  or  series  belongs. 

The  primeval  world,  the  Fore-World,  as  the  Ger 
mans  say, —  I  can  dive  to  it  in  myself  as  well  as  grope 
for  it  with  researching  fingers  in  catacombs,  libraries, 
and  the  broken  reliefs  and  torsos  of  ruined  villas. 


20  ESSAY  I. 

What  is  the  foundation  of  that  interest  all  men  feel 
in  Greek  history,  letters,  art  and  poetry,  in  all  its  pe 
riods,  from  the  heroic  or  Homeric  age,  down  to 
the  domestic  life  of  the  Athenians  and  Spartans,  four 
or  five  centuries  later  ?  This  period  draws  us  because 
we  are  Greeks.  It  is  a  state  through  which  every  man 
in  some  sort  passes.  The  Grecian  state  is  the  era  of 
the  bodily  nature,  the  perfection  of  the  senses,  —  of 
the  spiritual  nature  unfolded  in  strict  unity  with  the 
body.  In  it  existed  those  human  forms  which  sup 
plied  the  sculptor  with  his  models  of  Hercules,  Phoe 
bus,  and  Jove ;  not  like  the  forms  abounding  in  the 
streets  of  modern  cities,  wherein  the  face  is  a  con 
fused  blur  of  features,  but  composed  of  incorrupt, 
sharply  defined  and  symmetrical  features,  whose  eye- 
sockets  are  so  formed  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
such  eyes  to  squint,  and  take  furtive  glances  on  this 
side  and  on  that,  but  they  must  turn  the  whole  head. 

The  manners  of  that  period  are  plain  and  fierce. 
The  reverence  exhibited  is  for  personal  qualities, 
courage,  address,  self-command,  justice,  strength, 
swiftness,  a  loud  voice,  a  broad  chest.  Luxury  is  not 
known,  nor  elegance.  A  sparse  population  and  want 
make  every  man  his  own  valet,  cook,  butcher,  and 
soldier,  and  the  habit  of  supplying  his  own  needs 
educates  the  body  to  wonderful  performances.  Such 
are  the  Agamemnon  and  Diomed  of  Homer,  and  not  far 
different  is  the  picture  Xenophon  gives  of  himself  and 
his  compatriots  in  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand. 
"  After  the  army  had  crossed  the  river  Teleboas  in 
Armenia,  there  fell  much  snow,  and  the  troops  lay 


HISTORY.  21 

miserably  on  the  ground,  covered  with  it.  But  Xeno- 
phon  arose  naked,  and  taking  an  axe,  began  to  split 
wood  ;  whereupon  others  rose  and  did  the  like." 
Throughout  his  army  seemed  to  be  a  boundless  lib 
erty  of  speech.  They  quarrel  for  plunder,  they 
wrangle  with  the  generals  on  each  new  order,  and 
Xenophon  is  as  sharp-tongued  as  any,  and  sharper- 
tongued  than  most,  and  so  gives  as  good  as  he  gets. 
Who  does  not  see  that  this  is  a  gang  of  great  boys 
with  such  a  code  of  honor  and  such  lax  discipline  as 
great  boys  have  ? 

The  costly  charm  of  the  ancient  tragedy  and  in 
deed  of  all  the  old  literature  is,  that  the  persons  speak 
simply,  —  speak  as  persons  who  have  great  good 
sense  without  knowing  it,  before  yet  the  reflective 
habit  has  become  the  predominant  habit  of  the  mind. 
Our  admiration  of  the  antique  is  not  admiration  of  the 
old,  but  of  the  natural.  The  Greeks  are  not  reflective 
but  perfect  in  their  senses,  perfect  in  their  health, 
with  the  finest  physical  organization  in  the  world. 
Adults  acted  with  the  simplicity  and  grace  of  boys. 
They  made  vases,  tragedies,  and  statues  such  as 
healthy  senses  should  —  that  is,  in  good  taste.  Such 
things  have  continued  to  be  made  in  all  ages,  and  are 
now,  wherever  a  healthy  physique  exists,  but,  as  a  class, 
from  their  superior  organization,  they  have  surpassed 
all.  They  combine  the  energy  of  manhood  with  the  en 
gaging  unconsciousness  of  childhood.  Our  reverence 
for  them  is  our  reverence  for  childhood.  Nobody 
can  reflect  upon  an  unconscious  act  with  regret  or 
contempt.  Bard  or  hero  cannot  look  down  on  the 


22  ESSAY    I. 

word  or  gesture  of  a  child.  It  is  as  great  as  they. 
The  attraction  of  these  manners  is,  that  they  belong 
to  man,  and  are  known  to  every  man  in  virtue  of 
his  being  once  a  child  ;  beside  that  always  there 
are  individuals  who  retain  these  characteristics.  A 
person  of  childlike  genius  and  inborn  energy  is  still 
a  Greek,  and  revives  our  love  of  the  muse  of  Hellas. 
A  great  boy,  a  great  girl,  with  good  sense,  is  a 
Greek.  Beautiful  is  the  love  of  nature  in  the  Phi- 
loctetes.  But  in  reading  those  fine  apostrophes  to 
sleep,  to  the  stars,  rocks,  mountains,  and  waves,  I 
feel  time  passing  away  as  an  ebbing  sea.  I  feel  the 
eternity  of  man,  the  identity  of  his  thought.  The 
Greek  had,  it  seems,  the  same  fellow  beings  as 
I.  The  sun  and  moon,  water  and  fire,  met  his 
heart  precisely  as  they  meet  mine.  Then  the  vaunted 
distinction  between  Greek  and  English,  between  Clas 
sic  and  Romantic  schools  seems  superficial  and  pe 
dantic.  When  a  thought  of  Plato  becomes  a  thought 
to  me,  —  when  a  truth  that  fired  the  soul  of  Pindar 
fires  mine,  time  is  no  more.  When  I  feel  that  we  two 
meet  in  a  perception,  that  our  two  souls  are  tinged 
with  the  same  hue,  and  do,  as  it  were,  run  into  one, 
why  should  I  measure  degrees  of  latitude,  why  should 
I  count  Egyptian  years  ? 

The  student  interprets  the  age  of  chivalry  by  his 
own  age  of  chivalry,  and  the  days  of  maritime  ad 
venture  and  circumnavigation  by  quite  parallel  mini 
ature  experiences  of  his  own.  To  the  sacred  history 
of  the  world,  he  has  the  same  key.  When  the  voice 
of  a  prophet  out  of  the  deeps  of  antiquity  merely 


HISTORY.  23 

echoes  to  him  a  sentiment  of  his  infancy,  a  prayer  of 
his  youth,  he  then  pierces  to  the  truth  through  all  the 
confusion  of  tradition  and  the  caricature  of  institu 
tions. 

Rare,  extravagant  spirits  come  by  us  at  intervals, 
who  disclose  to  us  new  facts  in  nature.  I  see  that  men 
of  God  have  always,  from  time  to  time,  walked 
among  men  and  made  their  commission  felt  in  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  commonest  hearer.  Hence,  ev 
idently,  the  tripod,  the  priest,  the  priestess  inspired 
by  the  divine  afflatus. 

Jesus  astonishes  and  overpowers  sensual  people. 
They  cannot  unite  him  to  history  or  reconcile  him 
with  themselves.  As  they  come  to  revere  their  intui 
tions  and  aspire  to  live  holily,  their  own  piety  ex 
plains  every  fact,  every  word. 

How  easily  these  old  worships  of  Moses,  of  Zoro 
aster,  of  Menu,  of  Socrates,  domesticate  themselves 
in  the  mind.  I  cannot  find  any  antiquity  in  them. 
They  are  mine  as  much  as  theirs. 

Then  I  have  seen  the  first  monks  and  anchorets 
without  crossing  seas  or  centuries.  More  than  once 
some  individual  has  appeared  to  me  with  such  negli 
gence  of  labor  and  such  commanding  contemplation,  a 
haughty  beneficiary,  begging  in  the  name  of  God,  as 
made  good  to  the  nineteenth  century  Simeon  the 
Stylite,  the  Thebais,  and  the  first  Capuchins. 

The  priestcraft  of  the  East  and  West,  of  the  Ma- 
gian,  Brahmin,  Druid  and  Tnca,  is  expounded  in  the 
individual's  private  life.  The  cramping  influence  of 
a  hard  formalist  on  a  young  child  in  repressing  his 


24  ESSAY  I. 

spirits  and  courage,  paralyzing  the  understanding,  and 
that  without  producing  indignation,  but  only  fear  and 
obedience,  and  even  much  sympathy  with  the  tyran 
ny,  —  is  a  familiar  fact  explained  to  the  child  when  he 
becomes  a  man,  only  by  seeing  that  the  oppressor  of 
his  youth  is  himself  a  child  tyrannized  over  by  those 
names  and  words  and  forms,  of  whose  influence  he 
was  merely  the  organ  to  the  youth.  The  fact  teaches 
him  how  Belus  was  worshipped,  and  how  the  pyra 
mids  were  built,  better  than  the  discovery  by  Cham- 
pollion  of  the  names  of  all  the  workmen  and  the  cost  of 
every  tile.  He  finds  Assyria  and  the  Mounds  of 
Cholula  at  his  door,  and  himself  has  laid  the  courses. 

Again,  in  that  protest  which  each  considerate  per 
son  makes  against  the  superstition  of  his  times,  he 
reacts  step  for  step  the  part  of  old  reformers,  and  in 
the  search  after  truth  finds  like  them  new  perils  to 
virtue.  He  learns  again  what  moral  vigor  is  needed  to 
supply  the  girdle  of  a  superstition.  A  great  licen 
tiousness  treads  on  the  heels  of  a  reformation.  How 
many  times  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  the  Lu 
ther  of  the  day  had  to  lament  the  decay  of  piety  in 
his  own  household.  "  Doctor,"  said  his  wife  to  Mar 
tin  Luther  one  day,  "  how  is  it  that  whilst  subject  to 
papacy,  we  prayed  so  often  and  with  such  fervor, 
whilst  now  we  pray  with  the  utmost  coldness  and  very 
seldom  ? " 

The  advancing  man  discovers  how  deep  a  property 
he  hath  in  all  literature,  —  in  all  fable  as  well  as  in 
all  history.  He  finds  that  the  poet  was  no  odd  fellow 
who  described  strange  and  impossible  situations,  but 


HISTORY.  25 

that  universal  man  wrote  by  his  pen  a  confession  true 
for  one  and  true  for  all.  His  own  secret  biography 
he  finds  in  lines  wonderfully  intelligible  to  him,  yet 
dotted  down  before  he  was  born.  One  after  another 
he  comes  up  in  his  private  adventures  with  every 
fable  of  ^Esop,  of  Homer,  of  Hafiz,  of  Ariosto,  of 
Chaucer,  of  Scott,  and  verifies  them  with  his  own 
head  and  hands. 

The  beautiful  fables  of  the  Greeks,  being  proper 
creations  of  the  Imagination  and  not  of  the  Fancy, 
are  universal  verities.  What  a  range  of  meanings 
and  what  perpetual  pertinence  has  the  story  of  Pro 
metheus  !  Beside  its  primary  value  as  the  first  chap 
ter  of  the  history  of  Europe,  (the  mythology  thinly 
veiling  authentic  facts,  the  invention  of  the  mechanic 
arts,  and  the  migration  of  colonies,)  it  gives  the  his 
tory  of  religion  with  some  closeness  to  the  faith  of 
later  ages.  Prometheus  is  the  Jesus  of  the  old  mytho 
logy.  He  is  the  friend  of  man ;  stands  between  the 
unjust '  justice '  of  the  Eternal  Father,  and  the  race 
of  mortals  ;  and  readily  suffers  all  things  on  their  ac 
count.  But  where  it  departs  from  the  Calvinistic 
Christianity,  and  exhibits  him  as  the  defier  of  Jove, 
it  represents  a  state  of  mind  which  readily  appears 
wherever  the  doctrine  of  Theism  is  taught  in  a  crude, 
objective  form,  and  which  seems  the  self-defence  of 
man  against  this  untruth,  namely,  a  discontent  with 
the  believed  fact  that  a  God  exists,  and  a  feeling  that 
the  obligation  of  reverence  is  onerous.  It  would  steal, 
if  it  could,  the  fire  of  the  Creator,  and  live  apart 
from  him,  and  independent  of  him.  The  Prome- 
2 


26  ESSAY   I. 

theus  Vinctus  is  the  romance  of  skepticism.  Not  less 
true  to  all  time  are  all  the  details  of  that  stately  apo 
logue.  Apollo  kept  the  flocks  of  Admetus,  said  the 
poets.  Every  man  is  a  divinity  in  disguise,  a  god 
playing  the  fool.  It  seems  as  if  heaven  had  sent  its  in 
sane  angels  into  our  world  as  to  an  asylum,  and 
here  they  will  break  out  into  their  native  music  and 
utter  at  intervals  the  words  they  have  heard  in  heaven  ; 
then  the  mad  fit  returns,  and  they  mope  and  wallow 
like  dogs.  When  the  gods  come  among  men,  they 
are  not  known.  Jesus  was  not ;  Socrates  and  Shak- 
speare  were  not.  Antreus  was  suffocated  by  the 
gripe  of  Hercules,  but  every  time  he  touched  his 
mother  earth,  his  strength  was  renewed.  Man  is  the 
broken  giant,  and  in  all  his  weakness,  both  his  body 
and  his  mind  are  invigorated  by  habits  of  conver 
sation  with  nature.  The  power  of  music,  the  power 
of  poetry  to  unfix,  and  as  it  were,  clap  wings  to  all 
solid  nature,  interprets  the  riddle  of  Orpheus,  which 
was  to  his  childhood  an  idle  tale.  The  philosophical 
perception  of  identity  through  endless  mutations  of 
form,  makes  him  know  the  Proteus.  What  else  am 
I  who  laughed  or  wept  yesterday,  who  slept  last 
night  like  a  corpse,  and  this  morning  stood  and  ran  ? 
And  what  see  I  on  any  side  but  the  transmigrations 
of  Proteus  ?  I  can  symbolize  my  thought  by  using 
the  name  of  any  creature,  of  any  fact,  because  every 
creature  is  man  agent,  or  patient.  Tantalus  is  but 
a  name  for  you  and  me.  Tantalus  means  the  impos 
sibility  of  drinking  the  waters  of  thought  which  are 
always  gleaming  and  waving  within  sight  of  the  soul. 


27 


The  transmigration  of  souls  :  that  too  is  no  fable. 
I  would  it  were  ;  but  men  and  women  are  only  half 
human.  Every  animal  of  the  barn-yard,  the  field  and 
the  forest,  of  the  earth  and  of  the  waters  that  are  un 
der  the  earth,  has  contrived  to  get  a  footing  and  to 
leave  the  print  of  its  features  and  form  in  some  one 
or  other  of  these  upright,  heaven-facing  speakers. 
Ah,  brother,  hold  fast  to  the  man  and  awe  the  beast  ; 
stop  the  ebb  of  thy  soul  —  ebbing  downward  into 
the  forms  into  whose  habits  thou  hast  now  for  many 
years  slid.  As  near  and  proper  to  us  is  also  that  old 
fable  of  the  Sphinx,  who  was  said  to  sit  in  the  road 
side  and  put  riddles  to  every  passenger.  If  the  man 
could  not  answer  she  swallowed  him  alive.  If  he 
could  solve  the  riddle,  the  Sphinx  was  slain.  What 
is  our  life  but  an  endless  flight  of  winged  facts  or 
events  !  In  splendid  variety  these  changes  come,  all 
putting  questions  to  the  human  spirit.  Those  men 
who  cannot  answer  by  a  superior  wisdom  these  facts 
or  questions  of  time,  serve  them.  Facts  encumber 
them,  tyrannize  over  them,  and  make  the  men  of  rou 
tine,  the  men  of  sense,  in  whom  a  literal  obedience  to 
facts  has  extinguished  every  spark  of  that  light  by 
which  man  is  truly  man.  But  if  the  man  is  true  to 
his  better  instincts  or  sentiments,  and  refuses  the  do 
minion  of  facts,  as  one  that  comes  of  a  higher  race, 
remains  fast  by  the  soul  and  sees  the  principle,  then 
the  facts  fall  aptly  and  supple  into  their  places  ;  they 
know  their  master,  and  the  meanest  of  them  glo 
rifies  him. 

See  in  Goethe's  Helena  the  same  desire  that  every 


28  ESSAY    I. 

word  should  be  a  thing.  These  figures,  he  would  say, 
these  Chirons,  Griffins,  Phorkyas,  Helen,  and  Leda, 
are  somewhat,  and  do  exert  a  specific  influence  on 
the  mind.  So  far  then  are  they  eternal  entities,  as 
real  to-day  as  in  the  first  Olympiad.  Much  revolving 
them,  he  writes  out  freely  his  humor,  and  gives 
them  body  to  his  own  imagination.  And  although 
that  poem  be  as  vague  and  fantastic  as  a  dream,  yet 
is  it  much  more  attractive  than  the  more  regular  dra 
matic  pieces  of  the  same  author,  for  the  reason  that 
it  operates  a  wonderful  relief  to  the  mind  from  the 
routine  of  customary  images,  —  awakens  the  reader's 
invention  and  fancy  by  the  wild  freedom  of  the  de 
sign,  and  by  the  unceasing  succession  of  brisk  shocks 
of  surprise. 

The  universal  nature,  too  strong  for  the  petty  nature 
of  the  bard,  sits  on  his  neck  and  writes  through  his 
hand  ;  so  that  when  he  seems  to  vent  a  mere  caprice 
and  wild  romance,  the  issue  is  an  exact  allegory. 
Hence  Plato  said  that  "  poets  utter  great  and  wise 
things  which  they  do  not  themselves  understand." 
All  the  fictions  of  the  Middle  Age  explain  themselves 
as  a  masked  or  frolic  expression  of  that  which  in 
grave  earnest  the  mind  of  that  period  toiled  to 
achieve.  Magic,  and  all  that  is  ascribed  to  it,  is  man 
ifestly  a  deep  presentiment  of  the  powers  of  science. 
The  shoes  of  swiftness,  the  sword  of  sharpness,  the 
power  of  subduing  the  elements,  of  using  the  secret 
virtues  of  minerals,  of  understanding  the  voices  of 
birds,  are  the  obscure  efforts  of  the  mind  in  a  right 
direction.  The  preternatural  prowess  of  the  hero, 


HISTORY.  29 

the  gift  of  perpetual  youth,  and  the  like,  are  alike 
the  endeavor  of  the  human  spirit  "  to  bend  the  shows 
of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind." 

In  Perceforest  and  Amadis  de  Gaul,  a  garland  and 
a  rose  bloom  on  the  head  of  her  who  is  faithful,  and 
fade  on  the  brow  of  the  inconstant.  In  the  story  of 
the  Boy  and  the  Mantle,  even  a  mature  reader  may  be 
surprised  with  a  glow  of  virtuous  pleasure  at  the  tri 
umph  of  the  gentle  Genelas  ;  and  indeed,  all  the  pos 
tulates  of  elfin  annals,  that  the  Fairies  do  not  like  to 
be  named  ;  that  their  gifts  are  capricious  and  not  to 
be  trusted  ;  that  who  seeks  a  treasure  must  not  speak  ; 
and  the  like,  I  find  true  in  Concord,  however  they 
might  be  in  Cornwall  or  Bretagne. 

Is  it  otherwise  in  the  newest  romance  ?  I  read  the 
Bride  of  Lammermoor.  Sir  William  Ashton  is  a 
mask  for  a  vulgar  temptation,  Ravenswood  Castle, 
a  fine  name  for  proud  poverty,  and  the  foreign  mis 
sion  of  state  only  a  Bunyan  disguise  for  honest  in 
dustry.  We  may  all  shoot  a  wild  bull  that  would  toss 
the  good  and  beautiful,  by  fighting  down  the  unjust 
and  sensual.  Lucy  Ashton  is  another  name  for  fi 
delity,  which  is  always  beautiful  and  always  liable  to 
calamity  in  this  world. 

But  along  with  the  civil  and  metaphysical  history  of 
man,  another  history  goes  daily  forward  —  that  of  the 
external  world,  —  in  which  he  is  not  less  strictly  im 
plicated.  He  is  the  compend  of  time  :  he  is  also  the 
correlative  of  nature.  The  power  of  man  consists 
in  the  multitude  of  his  affinities,  in  the  fact  that  his 
life  is  intertwined  with  the  whole  chain  of  organic 


30  ESSAY    I. 

and  inorganic  being.  In  the  age  of  the  Cassars,  out 
from  the  Forurn  at  Rome  proceeded  the  great  high 
ways  north,  south,  east,  west,  to  the  centre  of  ev 
ery  province  of  the  empire,  making  each  market- 
town  of  Persia,  Spain  and  Britain,  pervious  to  the  sol 
diers  of  the  capital  :  so  out  of  the  human  heart  go,  as 
it  were,  highways  to  the  heart  of  every  object  in  na 
ture,  to  reduce  it  under  the  dominion  of  man.  A 
man  is  a  bundle  of  relations,  a  knot  of  roots,  whose 
flower  and  fruitage  is  the  world.  All  his  faculties  re 
fer  to  natures  out  of  him.  All  his  faculties  predict 
the  world  he  is  to  inhabit,  as  the  fins  of  the  fish  fore 
show  that  water  exists,  or  the  wings  of  an  eagle  in 
the  egg  presuppose  a  medium  like  air.  Insulate  and 
you  destroy  him.  He  cannot  live  without  a  world. 
Put  Napoleon  in  an  island  prison,  let  his  faculties 
find  no  men  to  act  on,  no  Alps  to  climb,  no  stake 
to  play  for,  and  he  would  beat  the  air  and  appear 
stupid.  Transport  him  to  large  countries,  dense  pop 
ulation,  complex  interests,  and  antagonist  power, 
and  you  shall  see  that  the  man  Napoleon,  bounded, 
that  is,  by  such  a  profile  and  outline,  is  not  the  vir 
tual  Napoleon.  This  is  but  Talbot's  shadow  ; 

His  substance  is  not  here  : 
For  what  you  see  is  but  the  smallest  part, 
And  least  proportion  of  humanity  ; 
But  were  the  whole  frame  here, 
It  is  of  such  a  spacious,  lofty  pitch, 
Your  roof  were  not  sufficient  to  contain  it. 

Henry  VI. 

Columbus  needs  a  planet  to  shape  his  course  upon. 
Newton  and  Laplace  need  myriads  of  ages  and  thick- 


HISTORY.  31 

strown  celestial  areas.  One  may  say  a  gravitating 
solar  system  is  already  prophesied  in  the  nature  of 
Newton's  mind.  Not  less  does  the  brain  of  Davy 
and  Gay  Lussac  from  childhood  exploring  always  the 
affinities  and  repulsions  of  particles,  anticipate  the 
laws  of  organization.  Does  not  the  eye  of  the  hu 
man  embryo  predict  the  light  ?  the  ear  of  Handel 
predict  the  witchcraft  of  harmonic  sound  ?  Do  not 
the  constructive  fingers  of  Watt,  Fulton,  Whittemore, 
Arkwright  predict  the  fusible,  hard,  and  temperable 
texture  of  metals,  the  properties  of  stone,  water  and 
wood  ?  the  lovely  attributes  of  the  maiden  child  pre 
dict  the  refinements  and  decorations  of  civil  society  ? 
Here  also  we  are  reminded  of  the  action  of  man  on 
man.  A  mind  might  ponder  its  thought  for  ages,  and 
not  gain  so  much  self-knowledge  as  the  passion  of 
love  shall  teach  it  in  a  day.  Who  knows  himself  be 
fore  he  has  been  thrilled  with  indignation  at  an 
outrage,  or  has  heard  an  eloquent  tongue,  or  has 
shared  the  throb  of  thousands  in  a  national  exul 
tation  or  alarm  ?  No  man  can  antedate  his  expe 
rience,  or  guess  what  faculty  or  feeling  a  new 
object  shall  unlock,  any  more  than  he  can  draw  to 
day  the  face  of  a  person  whom  he  shall  see  to-mor 
row  for  the  first  time. 

I  will  not  now  go  behind  the  general  statement  to 
explore  the  reason  of  this  correspondency.  Let  it 
suffice  that  in  the  light  of  these  two  facts,  namely, 
that  the  mind  is  One  ;  and  that  nature  is  its  correl 
ative,  history  is  to  be  read  and  written. 

Thus  in  all  ways  does  the  soul  concentrate  and 


32  ESSAY    I. 

reproduce  its  treasures  for  each  pupil,  for  each 
new-born  man.  He,  too,  shall  pass  through  the  whole 
cycle  of  experience.  He  shall  collect  into  a  focus 
the  rays  of  nature.  History  no  longer  shall  be  a  dull 
book.  It  shall  walk  incarnate  in  every  just  and  wise 
-man.  You  shall  not  tell  me  by  languages  and  titles  a 
catalogue  of  the  volumes  you  have  read.  You  shall 
make  me  feel  what  periods  you  have  lived.  A  man 
shall  be  the  Temple  of  Fame.  He  shall  walk,  as  the 
poets  have  described  that  goddess,  in  a  robe  painted 
all  over  with  wonderful  events  and  experiences  ; — 
his  own  form  and  features  by  their  exalted  intelligence 
shall  be  that  variegated  vest.  I  shall  find  in  him  the 
Foreworld  ;  in  his  childhood  the  Age  of  Gold  ;  the 
Apples  of  Knowledge  ;  the  Argonautic  Expedition  ; 
the  calling  of  Abraham  ;  the  building  of  the  Temple  ; 
the  Advent  of  Christ ;  Dark  Ages ;  the  Revival  of 
Letters ;  the  Reformation ;  the  discovery  of  new 
lands,  the  opening  of  new  sciences ,  and  new  regions 
in  man.  He  shall  be  the  priest  of  Pan,  and  bring 
with  him  into  humble  cottages  the  blessing  of  the 
morning  stars  and  all  the  recorded  benefits  of  heaven 
and  earth. 

Is  there  somewhat  overweening  in  this  claim  ? 
Then  I  reject  all  I  have  written,  for  what  is  the  use  of 
pretending  to  know  what  we  know  not  ?  But  it  is  the 
fault  of  our  rhetoric  that  we  cannot  strongly  state  one 
fact  without  seeming  to  belie  some  other.  I  hold  our 
actual  knowledge  very  cheap.  Hear  the  rats  in  the 
wall,  see  the  lizard  on  the  fence,  the  fungus  under 
foot,  the  lichen  on  the  log.  What  do  I  know  sym- 


HISTORY.  33 

pathetically,  morally,  of  either  of  these  worlds  of 
life  ?  As  long  as  the  Caucasian  man  — -  perhaps 
longer  —  these  creatures  have  kept  their  counsel  be 
side  him,  and  there  is  no  record  of  any  word  or  sign 
that  has  passed  from  one  to  the  other.  Nay,  what 
does  history  yet  record  of  the  metaphysical  annals  of 
man  ?  What  light  does  it  shed  on  those  mysteries 
which  we  hide  under  the  names  Death  and  Immor 
tality  ?  Yet  every  history  should  be  written  in  a 
wisdom  which  divined  the  range  of  our  affinities  and 
looked  at  facts  as  symbols.  I  am  ashamed  to  see 
what  a  shallow  village  tale  our  so-called  History  is. 
How  many  times  we  must  say  Rome,  and  Paris,  and 
Constantinople.  What  does  Rome  know  of  rat  and 
lizard  ?  What  are  Olympiads  and  Consulates  to  these 
neighboring  systems  of  being  ?  Nay,  what  food 
or  experience  or  succor  have  they  for  the  Esquimaux 
seal-hunter,  for  the  Kanaka  in  his  canoe,  for  the  fish 
erman,  the  stevedore,  the  porter  ? 

Broader  and  deeper  we  must  write  our  annals  — 
from  an  ethical  reformation,  from  an  influx  of  the 
ever  new,  ever  sanative  conscience,  —  if  we  would 
truelier  express  our  central  and  wide-related  nature, 
instead  of  this  old  chronology  of  selfishness  and  pride 
to  which  we  have  too  long  lent  our  eyes.  Already 
that  day  exists  for  us,  shines  in  on  us  at  unawares, 
but  the  path  of  science  and  of  letters  is  not  the  way 
into  nature,  but  from  it,  rather.  The  idiot,  the  In 
dian,  the  child,  and  unschooled  farmer's  boy,  come 
much  nearer  to  these,  —  understand  them  better  than 
the  dissector  or  the  antiquary. 
2* 


SELF-RELIANCE. 


Ne  te  quaesiveris  extra. 


"  Man  is  his  own  star,  arid  the  soul  that  can 
Render  an  honest  and  a  perfect  man, 
Command  all  light,  all  influence,  all  fate, 
Nothing  to  him  falls  early  or  too  late. 
Our  acts  our  angels  are,  or  good  or  ill, 
Our  fatal  shadows  that  walk  by  us  still." 

Epilogue  to  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Honest  Man's  Fortune. 


Cast  the  bantling  on  the  rocks, 
Suckle  him  with  the  she- wolf 's  teat : 
Wintered  with  the  hawk  and  fox, 
Power  and  speed  be  hands  and  feet. 


ESSAY    II. 


SELF-RELIANCE, 


I  READ  the  other  day  some  verses  written  by  an  emi 
nent  painter  which  were  original  and  not  conven 
tional.  Always  the  soul  hears  an  admonition  in  such 
lines,  let  the  subject  be  what  it  may.  The  sentiment 
they  instil  is  of  more  value  than  any  thought  they 
may  contain.  To  believe  your  own  thought,  to  be 
lieve  that  what  is  true  for  you  in  your  private  heart,  is 
true  for  all  men,  —  that  is  genius.  Speak  your  latent 
conviction  and  it  shall  be  the  universal  sense  ;  for  al 
ways  the  inmost  becomes  the  outmost,  —  and  our 
first  thought  is  rendered  back  to  us  by  the  trumpets  of 
the  Last  Judgment.  Familiar  as  the  voice  of  the 
mind  is  to  each,  the  highest  merit  we  ascribe  to  Moses, 
Plato,  and  Milton,  is  that  they  set  at  naught  books 
and  traditions,  and  spoke  not  what  men  but  what  they 
thought.  A  man  should  learn  to  detect  and  watch 
that  gleam  of  light  which  flashes  across  his  mind 
from  within,  more  than  the  lustre  of  the  firmament  of 


38  ESSAY    II. 

bards  and  sages.  Yet  he  dismisses  without  notice  his 
thought,  because  it  is  his.  In  every  work  of  genius 
we  recognise  our  own  rejected  thoughts  :  they  come 
back  to  us  with  a  certain  alienated  majesty.  Great 
works  of  art  have  no  more  affecting  lesson  for  us 
than  this.  They  teach  us  to  abide  by  our  spontaneous 
impression  with  good  humored  inflexibility  then  most 
when  the  whole  cry  of  voices  is  on  the  other  side. 
Else,  to-morrow  a  stranger  will  say  with  masterly 
good  sense  precisely  what  we  have  thought  and  felt 
all  the  time,  and  we  shall  be  forced  to  take  with 
shame  our  own  opinion  from  another. 

There  is  a  time  in  every  man's  education  when  he 
arrives  at  the  conviction  that  envy  is  ignorance  ;  that 
imitation  is  suicide  ;  that  he  must  take  himself  for 
better,  for  worse,  as  his  portion  ;  that  though  the  wide 
universe  is  full  of  good,  no  kernel  of  nourishing  corn 
can  come  to  him  but  through  his  toil  bestowed  on  that 
plot  of  ground  which  is  given  to  him  to  till.  The 
power  which  resides  in  him  is  new  in  nature,  and  none 
but  he  knows  what  that  is  which  he  can  do,  nor  does 
he  know  until  he  has  tried.  Not  for  nothing  one  face, 
one  character,  one  fact  makes  much  impression  on 
him,  and  another  none.  It  is  not  without  preestab- 
lished  harmony,  this  sculpture  in  the  memory.  The 
eye  was  placed  where  one  ray  should  fall,  that  it 
might  testify  of  that  particular  ray.  Bravely  let  him 
speak  the  utmost  syllable  of  his  confession.  We  but 
half  express  ourselves,  and  are  ashamed  of  that  di 
vine  idea  which  each  of  us  represents.  It  may  be 
safely  trusted  as  proportionate  and  of  good  issues,  so 


SELF-RELIANCE.  39 

it  be  faithfully  imparted,  but  God  will  not  have  his 
work  made  manifest  by  cowards.  It  needs  a  divine 
man  to  exhibit  any  thing  divine.  A  man  is  relieved 
and  gay  when  he  has  put  his  heart  into  his  work  and 
done  his  best ;  but  what  he  has  said  or  done  otherwise, 
shall  give  him  no  peace.  It  is  a  deliverance  which 
does  not  deliver.  In  the  attempt  his  genius  deserts 
him  ;  no  muse  befriends  ;  no  invention,  no  hope. 

Trust- thyself :  every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron 
string.  Accept  the  place  the  divine  Providence  has 
found  for  you  ;  the  society  of  your  contemporaries, 
the  connexion  of  events.  Great  men  have  always 
done  so  and  confided  themselves  childlike  to  the  genius 
of  their  age,  betraying  their  perception  that  the 
Eternal  was  stirring  at  their  heart,  working  through 
their  hands,  predominating  in  all  their  being.  And 
we  are  now  men,  and  must  accept  in  the  highest  mind 
the  same  transcendent  destiny ;  and  not  pinched  in  a 
corner,  not  cowards  fleeing  before  a  revolution,  but 
redeemers  and  benefactors,  pious  aspirants  to  be 
noble  clay  plastic  under  the  Almighty  effort,  let  us 
advance  and  advance  on  Chaos  and  the  Dark. 

What  pretty  oracles  nature  yields  us  on  this  text  in 
the  face  and  behavior  of  children,  babes  and  even 
brutes.  That  divided  and  rebel  mind,  that  distrust  of 
a  sentiment  because  our  arithmetic  has  computed  the 
strength  and  means  opposed  to  our  purpose,  these 
have  not.  Their  mind  being  whole,  their  eye  is  as 
yet  unconquered,  and  when  we  look  in  their  faces,  we 
are  disconcerted.  Infancy  conforms  to  nobody :  all 
conform  to  it,  so  that  one  babe  commonly  makes  four 


40  ESSAY    II. 

or  five  out  of  the  adults  who  prattle  and  play  to  it. 
So  God  has  armed  youth  and  puberty  and  manhood 
no  less  with  its  own  piquancy  and  charm,  and  made  it 
enviable  and  gracious  and  its  claims  not  to  be  put  by, 
if  it  will  stand  by  itself.  Do  not  think  the  youth  has 
no  force  because  he  cannot  speak  to  you  and  me. 
Hark !  in  the  next  room,  who  spoke  so  clear  and  em 
phatic  ?  Good  Heaven  !  it  is  he  !  it  is  that  very  lump  of 
bashfulness  and  phlegm  which  for  weeks  has  done 
nothing  but  eat  when  you  were  by,  that  now  rolls  out 
these  words  like  bell-strokes.  It  seems  he  knows  how 
to  speak  to  his  contemporaries.  Bashful  or  bold,  then, 
he  will  know  how  to  make  us  seniors  very  unneces 
sary. 

The  nonchalance  of  boys  who  are  sure  of  a  din 
ner,  and  would  disdain  as  much  as  a  lord  to  do  or  say 
aught  to  conciliate  one,  is  the  healthy  attitude  of  hu 
man  nature.  How  is  a  boy  the  master  of  society  ;  in 
dependent,  irresponsible,  looking  out  from  his  corner 
on  such  people  and  facts  as  pass  by,  he  tries  and  sen 
tences  them  on  their  merits,  in  the  swift  summary 
way  of  boys,  as  good,  bad,  interesting,  silly,  eloquent, 
troublesome.  He  cumbers  himself  never  about  con 
sequences,  about  interests  :  he  gives  an  independent, 
genuine  verdict.  You  must  court  him :  he  does  not 
court  you.  But  the  man  is,  as  it  were,  clapped  into 
jail  by  his  consciousness.  As  soon  as  he  has  once 
acted  or  spoken  with  eclat,  he  is  a  committed  person, 
watched  by  the  sympathy  or  the  hatred  of  hundreds 
whose  affections  must  now  enter  into  his  account. 
There  is  no  Lethe  for  this.  Ah,  that  he  could  pass 


SELF-RELIANCE.  41 

again  into  his  neutral,  godlike  independence  !  Who  can 
thus  lose  all  pledge,  and  having  observed,  observe 
again  from  the  same  unaffected,  unbiased,  unbribable, 
unaffrighted  innocence,  must  always  be  formidable, 
must  always  engage  the  poet's  and  the  man's  regards. 
Of  such  an  immortal  youth  the  force  would  be  felt. 
He  would  utter  opinions  on  all  passing  affairs,  which 
being  seen  to  be  not  private  but  necessary,  would  sink 
like  darts  into  the  ear  of  men,  and  put  them  in  fear. 

These  are  the  voices  which  we  hear  in  solitude, 
but  they  grow  faint  and  inaudible  as  we  enter  into 
the  world.  Society  everywhere  is  in  conspiracy 
against  the  manhood  of  every  one  of  its  members. 
Society  is  a  joint-stock  company  in  which  the  mem 
bers  agree  for  the  better  securing  of  his  bread  to  each 
shareholder,  to  surrender  the  liberty  and  culture  of 
the  eater.  The  virtue  in  most  request  is  conformity. 
Self-reliance  is  its  aversion.  It  loves  not  realities  and 
creators,  but  names  and  customs. 

Whoso  would  be  a  man  must  be  a  nonconformist. 
He  who  would  gather  immortal  palms  must  not  be  hin 
dered  by  the  name  of  goodness,  but  must  explore  if  it 
be  goodness.  Nothing  is  at  last  sacred  but  the  integrity 
of  our  own  mind.  Absolve  you  to  yourself,  and  you 
shall  have  the  suffrage  of  the  world.  I  remember  an  an 
swer  which  when  quite  young  I  was  prompted  to  make 
to  a  valued  adviser  who  was  wont  to  importune  me  with 
the  dear  old  doctrines  of  the  church.  On  my  saying, 
What  have  I  to  do  with  the  sacredness  of  traditions, 
if  I  live  wholly  from  within  ?  my  friend  suggested  — 
"  But  these  impulses  may  be  from  below,  not  from 


42  '     ESSAY    II. 

above."  I  replied,  '  They  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
such  ;  but  if  I  am  the  devil's  child,  1  will  live  then 
from  the  devil.'  No  law  can  be  sacred  to  me  but  that 
of  my  nature.  Good  and  bad  are  but  names  very 
readily  transferable  to  that  or  this  ;  the  only  right  is 
what  is  after  my  constitution,  the  only  wrong  what  is 
against  it.  A  man  is  to  carry  himself  in  the  presence 
of  all  opposition  as  if  every  thing  were  titular  and 
ephemeral  but  he.  I  am  ashamed  to  think  how  easily 
we  capitulate  to  badges  and  names,  to  large  societies 
and  dead  institutions.  Eveiy  decent  and  well-spoken 
individual  affects  and  sways  me  more  than  is  right. 
I  ought  to  go  upright  and  vital,  and  speak  the  rude 
truth  in  all  ways.  If  malice  and  vanity  wear  the  coat 
of  philanthropy,  shall  that  pass  ?  If  an  angry  bigot 
assumes  this  bountiful  cause  of  Abolition,  and  comes 
to  me  with  his  last  news  from  Barbadoes,  why  should 
I  not  say  to  him,  '  Go  love  thy  infant ;  love  thy  wood- 
chopper  :  be  good-natured  and  modest :  have  that 
grace ;  and  never  varnish  your  hard,  uncharitable 
ambition  with  this  incredible  tenderness  for  black  folk 
a  thousand  miles  off.  Thy  love  afar  is  spite  at  home.' 
Rough  and  graceless  would  be  such  greeting,  but  truth 
is  handsomer  than  the  affectation  of  love.  Your 
goodness  must  have  some  edge  to  it  —  else  it  is  none. 
The  doctrine  of  hatred  must  be  preached  as  the  coun 
teraction  of  the  doctrine  of  love  when  that  pules  and 
whines.  I  shun  father  and  mother  and  wife  and  bro 
ther,  when  my  genius  calls  me.  I  would  write  on  the 
lintels  of  the  door-post,  Whim.  I  hope  it  is  somewhat 
better  than  whim  at  last,  but  we  cannot  spend  the  day 


SELF-RELIANCE.  43 

in  explanation.  Expect  me  not  to  show  cause  why  I 
seek  or  why  I  exclude  company.  Then,  again,  do  not 
tell  me,  as  a  good  man  did  to-day,  of  my  obligation  to 
put  all  poor  men  in  good  situations.  Are  they  my 
poor  ?  I  tell  thee,  thou  foolish  philanthropist,  that  I 
grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent  I  give  to  such 
men  as  do  not  belong  to  me  and  to  whom  I  do  not  be 
long.  There  is  a  class  of  persons  to  whom  by  all 
spiritual  affinity  I  am  bought  and  sold ;  for  them  I 
will  go  to  prison,  if  need  be ;  but  your  miscellaneous 
popular  charities  ;  the  education  at  college  of  fools  ; 
the  building  of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain  end  to  which 
many  now  stand  ;  alms  to  sots ;  and  the  thousandfold 
Relief  Societies ;  —  though  I  confess  with  shame  I 
sometimes  succumb  and  give  the  dollar,  it  is  a  wicked 
dollar  which  by-and-by  I  shall  have  the  manhood  to 
withhold. 

Virtues  are  in  the  popular  estimate  rather  the  ex 
ception  than  the  rule.  There  is  the  man  and  his  vir 
tues.  Men  do  what  is  called  a  good  action,  as  some 
piece  of  courage  or  charity,  much  as  they  would  pay 
a  fine  in  expiation  of  daily  non-appearance  on  pa 
rade.  Their  works  are  done  as  an  apology  or  exten 
uation  of  their  living  in  the  world,  —  as  invalids  and 
the  insane  pay  a  high  board.  Their  virtues  are  pen 
ances.  I  do  not  wish  to  expiate,  but  to  live.  My  life 
is  not  an  apology,  but  a  life.  It  is  for  itself  and  not 
for  a  spectacle.  I  much  prefer  that  it  should  be  of  a 
lower  strain,  so  it  be  genuine  and  equal,  than  that  it 
should  be  glittering  and  unsteady-  I  wish  it  to  be 
sound  and  sweet,  and  not  to  need  diet  and  bleeding. 


44  ESSAY    II. 

My  life  should  be  unique  ;  it  should  be  an  alms,  a 
battle,  a  conquest,  a  medicine.  I  ask  primary  evi 
dence  that  you  are  a  man,  and  refuse  this  appeal  from 
the  man  to  his  actions.  I  know  that  for  myself  it 
makes  no  difference  whether  I  do  or  forbear  those 
actions  which  are  reckoned  excellent.  I  cannot 
consent  to  pay  for  a  privilege  where  I  have  intrinsic 
right.  Few  and  mean  as  my  gifts  may  be,  I  actu 
ally  am,  and  do  not  need  for  my  own  assurance  or 
the  assurance  of  my  fellows  any  secondary  testi 
mony. 

What  I  must  do,  is  all  that  concerns  me,  not  what 
the  people  think.  This  rule,  equally  arduous  in  ac 
tual  and  in  intellectual  life,  may  serve  for  the  whole  dis 
tinction  between  greatness  and  meanness.  It  is  the 
harder,  because  you  will  always  find  those  who  think 
they  know  what  is  your  duty  better  than  you  know  it. 
It  is  easy  in  the  world  to  live  after  the  world's  opin 
ion  ;  it  is  easy  in  solitude  to  live  after  our  own  ;  but 
the  great  man  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd 
keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  independence  of  sol 
itude. 

The  objection  to  conforming  to  usages  that  have  be 
come  dead  to  you,  is,  that  it  scatters  your  force.  It 
loses  your  time  and  blurs  the  impression  of  your  char 
acter.  If  you  maintain  a  dead  church,  contribute 
to  a  dead  Bible-Society,  vote  with  a  great  party 
either  for  the  Government  or  against  it,  spread  your 
table  like  base  housekeepers,  —  under  all  these 
screens,  I  have  difficulty  to  detect  the  precise  man 
you  are.  And,  of  course,  so  much  force  is  with- 


SELF-RELIANCE.  45 

drawn  from  your  proper  life.  But  do  your  thing,  and 
I  shall  know  you.  Do  your  work,  and  you  shall  re 
inforce  yourself.  A  man  must  consider  what  a  blind- 
rnan's-buff  is  this  game  of  conformity.  If  I  know 
your  sect,  I  anticipate  your  argument.  I  hear  a 
preacher  announce  for  his  text  and  topic  the  expedi 
ency  of  one  of  the  institutions  of  his  church.  Do  I 
not  know  beforehand  that  not  possibly  can  he  say  a 
new  and  spontaneous  word  ?  Do  I  not  know  that 
with  all  this  ostentation  of  examining  the  grounds  of 
the  institution,  he  will  do  no  such  thing  ?  Do  I  not 
know  that  he  is  pledged  to  himself  not  to  look  but  at 
one  side  ;  the  permitted  side,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a 
parish  minister  ?  He  is  a  retained  attorney,  and  these 
airs  of  the  bench  are  the  emptiest  affectation.  Well, 
most  men  have  bound  their  eyes  with  one  or  another 
handkerchief,  and  attached  themselves  to  some  one 
of  these  communities  of  opinion.  This  conformity 
makes  them  not  false  in  a  few  particulars,  authors  of 
a  few  lies,  but  false  in  all  particulars.  Their  every 
truth  is  not  quite  true.  Their  two  is  not  the  real  two, 
their  four  not  the  real  four  :  so  that  every  word  they 
say  chagrins  us,  and  we  know  not  where  to  begin  to 
set  them  right.  Meantime  nature  is  not  slow  to  equip 
us  in  the  prison-uniform  of  the  party  to  which  we 
adhere.  We  come  to  wear  one  cut  of  face  and  fig 
ure,  and  acquire  by  degrees  the  gentlest  asinine  ex 
pression.  There  is  a  mortifying  experience  in  par 
ticular  which  does  not  fail  to  wreak  itself  also  in  the 
genera]  history  ;  I  mean,  "  the  foolish  face  of  praise," 
the  forced  smile  which  we  put  on  in  company  where 


46  ESSAY    II. 

we  do  not  feel  atease  in  answer  to  conversation  which 
does  not  interest  us.  The  muscles,  not  spontaneously 
moved,  but  moved  by  a  low  usurping  wilfulness,  grow 
tight  about  the  outline  of  the  face  and  make  the  most 
disagreeable  sensation,  a  sensation  of  rebuke  and 
warning  which  no  brave  young  man  will  suffer  twice. 

For  non-conformity  the  world  whips  you  with  its 
displeasure.  And  therefore  a  man  must  know  how 
to  estimate  a  sour  face.  The  bystanders  look  askance 
on  him  in  the  public  street  or  in  the  friend's  parlor. 
If  this  aversation  had  its  origin  in  contempt  and  re 
sistance  like  his  own,  he  might  well  go  home  with  a 
sad  countenance  ;  but  the  sour  faces  of  the  multitude, 
like  their  sweet  faces,  have  no  deep  cause,  —  disguise 
no  god,  but  are  put  on  and  off  as  the  wind  blows, 
and  a  newspaper  directs.  Yet  is  the  discontent  of  the 
multitude  more  formidable  than  that  of  the  senate 
and  the  college.  It  is  easy  enough  for  a  firm  man 
who  knows  the  world  to  brook  the  rage  of  the  culti 
vated  classes.  Their  rage  is  decorous  and  prudent, 
for  they  are  timid  as  being  very  vulnerable  themselves. 
But  when  to  their  feminine  rage  the  indignation  of 
the  people  is  added,  when  the  ignorant  and  the  poor 
are  aroused,  when  the  unintelligent  brute  force  that 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  society  is  made  to  growl  and 
mow,  it  needs  the  habit  of  magnanimity  and  religion 
to  treat  it  godlike  as  a  trifle  of  no  concernment. 

The  other  terror  that  scares  us  from  self-trust  is  our 
consistency  ;  a  reverence  for  our  past  act  or  word, 
because  the  eyes  of  others  have  no  other  data  for 
computing  our  orbit  than  our  past  acts,  and  we  are 
loath  to  disappoint  them. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  47 

But  why  should  you  keep  your  head  over  your 
shoulder  ?  Why  drag  about  this  monstrous  corpse  of 
your  memory,  lest  you  contradict  somewhat  you  have 
stated  in  this  or  that  public  place  ?  Suppose  you 
should  contradict  yourself;  what  then  ?  It  seems  to 
be  a  rule  of  wisdom  never  to  rely  on  your  memory 
alone,  scarcely  even  in  acts  of  pure  memory, 
but  bring  the  past  for  judgment  into  the  thousand- 
eyed  present,  and  live  ever  in  a  new  day.  Trust 
your  emotion.  In  your  metaphysics  you  have  de 
nied  personality  to  the  Deity  :  yet  when  the  devout 
motions  of  the  soul  come,  yield  to  them  heart  and 
life,  though  they  should  clothe  God  with  shape  and 
color.  Leave  your  theory  as  Joseph  his  coat  in  the 
hand  of  the  harlot,  and  flee. 

A  foolish  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  little 
minds,  adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philosophers 
and  divines.  With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  simply 
nothing  to  do.  He  may  as  well  concern  himself  with 
his  shadow  on  the  wall.  Out  upon  your  guarded  lips  ! 
Sew  them  up  with  packthread,  do.  Else,  if  you 
would  be  a  man,  speak  what  you  think  to-day  in  words 
as  hard  as  cannon  balls,  and  to-morrow  speak  what 
to-morrow  thinks  in  hard  words  again,  though  it  con 
tradict  every  thing  you  said  to-day.  Ah,  then,  ex 
claim  the  aged  ladies,  you  shall  be  sure  to  be  misun 
derstood.  Misunderstood  !  It  is  a  right  fool's  word. 
Is  it  so  bad  then  to  be  misunderstood  ?  Pythagoras 
was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Lu 
ther,  and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  Newton,  and 
every  pure  and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took  flesh.  To 
be  great  is  to  be  misunderstood. 


48  ESSAY  II. 

I  suppose  no  man  can  violate  his  nature.  All  the 
sallies  of  his  will  are  rounded  in  by  the  law  of  his  be 
ing  as  the  inequalities  of  Andes  and  Himmaleh  are 
insignificant  in  the  curve  of  the  sphere.  Nor  does  it 
matter  how  you  guage  and  try  him.  A  character  is 
like  an  acrostic  or  Alexandrian  stanza ;  —  read  it  for 
ward,  backward,  or  across,  it  still  spells  the  same 
thing.  In  this  pleasing  contrite  wood-life  which  God 
allows  me,  let  me  record  day  by  day  my  honest  thought 
without  prospect  or  retrospect,  and,  I  cannot  doubt,  it 
will  be  found  symmetrical,  though  I  mean  it  not,  and 
see  it  not.  My  book  should  smell  of  pines  and  resound 
with  the  hum  of  insects.  The  swallow  over  my  win 
dow  should  interweave  that  thread  or  straw  he  carries 
in  his  bill  into  my  web  also.  We  pass  for  what  we  are. 
Character  teaches  above  our  wills.  Men  imagine  that 
they  communicate  their  virtue  or  vice  only  by  overt 
actions  and  do  not  see  that  virtue  or  vice  emit  a  breath 
every  moment. 

Fear  never  but  you  shall  be  consistent  in  whatever 
variety  of  actions,  so  they  be  each  honest  and  natural 
in  their  hour.  For  of  one  will,  the  actions  will  be  har 
monious,  however  unlike  they  seem.  These  varieties 
are  lost  sight  of  when  seen  at  a  little  distance,  at  a  lit 
tle  height  of  thought.  One  tendency  unites  them  all. 
The  voyage  of  the  best  ship  is  a  zigzag  line  of  a  hun 
dred  tacks.  This  is  only  microscopic  criticism.  See 
the  line  from  a  sufficient  distance,  and  it  straightens 
itself  to  the  average  tendency.  Your  genuine  action 
will  explain  itself  and  will  explain  your  other  genuine 
actions.  Your  conformity  explains  nothing.  Act  sin- 


SELF-RELIANCE.  49 

gly,  and  what  you  have  already  done  singly,  will  justify 
you  now.  Greatness  always  appeals  to  the  future. 
If  I  can  be  great  enough  now  to  do  right  and  scorn 
eyes,  I  must  have  done  so  much  right  before,  as  to  de 
fend  me  now.  Be  it  how  it  will,  do  right  now.  Al 
ways  scorn  appearances,  and  you  always  may.  The 
force  of  character  is  cumulative.  All  the  foregone 
days  of  virtue  work 'their  health  into  this.  What 
makes  the  majesty  of  the  heroes  of  the  senate  and  the 
field,  which  so  fills  the  imagination  ?  The  conscious 
ness  of  a  train  of  great  days  and  victories  behind. 
There  they  all  stand  and  shed  an  united  light  on  the 
advancing  actor.  He  is  attended  as  by  a  visible  es 
cort  of  angels  to  every  man's  eye.  That  is  it  which 
throws  thunder  into  Chatham's  voice,  and  dignity  into 
Washington's  port,  and  America  into  Adams's  eye. 
Honor  is  venerable  to  us  because  it  is  no  ephemeris. 
It  is  always  ancient  virtue.  We  worship  it  to-day,  be 
cause  it  is  not  of  to-day.  We  love  it  and  pay  it  hom 
age,  because  it  is  not  a  trap  for  our  love  and  homage, 
but  is  self-dependent,  self-derived,  and  therefore  of  an 
old  immaculate  pedigree,  even  if  shown  in  a  young 
person. 

I  hope  in  these  days  we  have  heard  the  last  of  con 
formity  and  consistency.  Let  the  words  be  gazetted 
and  ridiculous  henceforward.  Instead  of  the  gong  for 
dinner,  let  us  hear  a  whistle  from  the  Spartan  fife. 
Let  us  bow  and  apologize  never  more.  A  great  man 
is  coming  to  eat  at  my  house.  I  do  not  wish  to  please 
him  :  I  wish  that  he  should  wish  to  please  me.  I  will 
stand  here  for  humanity,  and  though  I  would  make  it 
3 


50  ESSAY    II. 

kind,  I  would  made  it  true.  Let  us  affront  and  repri 
mand  the  smooth  mediocrity  and  squalid  contentment 
of  the  times,  and  hurl  in  the  face  of  custom,  and  trade, 
and  office,  the  fact  which  is  the  upshot  of  all  history, 
that  there  is  a  great  responsible  Thinker  and  Actor 
moving  wherever  moves  a  man  ;  that  a  true  man  be 
longs  to  no  other  time  or  place,  but  is  the  centre  of 
things.  Where  he  is,  there  is  nature.  He  measures 
you,  and  all  men,  and  all  events.  You  are  constrained 
to  accept  his  standard.  Ordinarily  every  body  in  soci 
ety  reminds  us  of  somewhat  else  or  of  some  other 
person.  Character,  reality,  reminds  you  of  nothing 
else.  It  takes  place  of  the  whole  creation.  The  man 
must  be  so  much  that  he  must  make  all  circumstances 
indifferent,  —  put  all  means  into  the  shade.  This  all 
great  men  are  and  do.  Every  true  man  is  a  cause,  a 
country,  and  an  age  ;  requires  infinite  spaces  and  num 
bers  and  time  fully  to  accomplish  his  thought ;  —  and 
posterity  seem  to  follow  his  steps  as  a  procession.  A 
man  Caesar  is  born,  and  for  ages  after,  we  have  a  Ro 
man  Empire.  Christ  is  born,  and  millions  of  minds 
so  grow  and  cleave  to  his  genius,  that  he  is  confound 
ed  with  virtue  and  the  possible  of  man.  An  institution 
is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  one  man  ;  as,  the  Refor 
mation,  of  Luther  ;  Quakerism,  of  Fox  ;  Methodism, 
of  Wesley  ;  Abolition,  of  Clarkson.  Scipio,  Milton 
called  "  the  height  of  Rome  ;"  and  all  history  resolves 
itself  very  easily  into  the  biography  of  a  few  stout  and 
earnest  persons. 

Let  a  man  then  know  his  worth,  and  keep  things  un 
der  his  feet.     Let  him  not  peep  or  steal,  or  skulk  up 


SELF-RELIANCE.  51 

and  down  with  the  air  of  a  charity-boy,  a  bastard,  or 
an  interloper,  in  the  world  which  exists  for  him.  But 
the  man  in  the  street  finding  no  worth  in  himself  which 
corresponds  to  the  force  which  built  a  tower  or  sculp 
tured  a  marble  god,  feels  poor  when  he  looks  on  these. 
To  him  a  palace,  a  statue,  or  a  costly  book  have  an 
alien  and  forbidding  air,  much  like  a  gay  equipage, 
and  seem  to  say  like  that,  '  Who  are  you,  sir  ?'  Yet 
they  all  are  his,  suitors  for  his  notice,  petitioners  to  his 
faculties  that  they  will  come  out  and  take  possession. 
The  picture  waits  for  my  verdict :  it  is  not  to  command 
me,  but  I  am  to  settle  its  claims  to  praise.  That  pop 
ular  fable  of  the  sot  who  was  picked  up  dead  drunk  in 
the  street,  carried  to  the  duke's  house,  washed  and 
dressed  and  laid  in  the  duke's  bed,  and,  on  his  waking, 
treated  with  all  obsequious  ceremony  like  the  duke, 
and  assured  that  he  had  been  insane, —  owes  its  popu 
larity  to  the  fact,  that  it  symbolizes  so  well  the  state  of 
man,  who  is  in  the  world  a  sort  of  sot,  but  now  and  then 
wakes  up,  exercises  his  reason,  and  finds  himself  a  true 
prince. 

Our  reading  is  mendicant  and  sycophantic.  In  his 
tory,  our  imagination  makes  fools  of  us,  plays  us  false. 
Kingdom  and  lordship,  power  and  estate  are  a  gaudier 
vocabulary  than  private  John  and  Edward  in  a  small 
house  and  common  day's  work  :  but  the  things  of  life 
are  the  same  to  both :  the  sum  total  of  both  is  the 
same.  Why  all  this  deference  to  Alfred,  and  Scander- 
beg,  and  Gustavus  ?  Suppose  they  were  virtuous : 
did  they  wear  out  virtue  ?  As  great  a  stake  depends 
on  your  private  act  to-day,  as  followed  their  public  and 


52  ESSAY    II. 

renowned  steps.  When  private  men  shall  act  with 
vast  views,  the  lustre  will  be  transferred  from  the  ac 
tions  of  kings  to  those  of  gentlemen. 

The  world  has  indeed  been  instructed  by  its  kings, 
who  have  so  magnetized  the  eyes  of  nations.  It  has 
been  taught  by  this  colossal  symbol  the  mutual  rever 
ence  that  is  due  from  man  to  man.  The  joyful  loy 
alty  with  which  men  have  every  where  suffered  the 
king,  the  noble,  or  the  great  proprietor  to  walk  among 
them  by  a  law  of  his  own,  make  his  own  scale  of  men 
and  things,  and  reverse  theirs,  pay  for  benefits  not  with 
money  but  with  honor,  and  represent  the  Law  in  his 
person,  was  the  hieroglyphic  by  which  they  obscurely 
signified  their  consciousness  of  their  own  right  and 
comeliness,  the  right  of  every  man. 

The  magnetism  which  all  original  action  exerts  is 
explained  when  we  inquire  the  reason  of  self-trust. 
Who  is  the  Trustee  ?  What  is  the  aboriginal  Self  on 
which  a  universal  reliance  may  be  grounded  ?  What 
is  the  nature  and  power  of  that  science-baffling  star, 
without  parallax,  without  calculable  elements,  which 
shoots  a  ray  of  beauty  even  into  trivial  and  impure 
actions,  if  the  least  mark  of  independence  appear  ? 
The  inquiry  leads  us  to  that  source,  at  once  the  essence 
of  genius,  the  essence  of  virtue,  and  the  essence  of  life, 
which  we  call  Spontaneity  or  Instinct.  We  denote 
this  primary  wisdom  as  Intuition,  whilst  all  later  teach 
ings  are  tuitions.  In  that  deep  force,  the  last  fact  be 
hind  which  analysis  cannot  go,  all  things  find  their 
common  origin.  For  the  sense  of  being  which  in 
calm  hours  rises,  we  know  not  how,  in  the  soul,  is  not 


SELF-RELIANCE.  53 

diverse  from  things,  from  space,  from  light,  from  time, 
from  man,  but  one  with  them,  and  proceedeth  obvious 
ly  from  the  same  source  whence  their  life  and  be 
ing  also  proceedeth.  We  first  share  the  life  by 
which  things  exist,  and  afterwards  see  them  as 
appearances  in  nature,  and  forget  that  we  have 
shared  their  cause.  Here  is  the  fountain  of  action 
and  the  fountain  of  thought.  Here  are  the  lungs  of 
that  inspiration  which  giveth  man  wisdom,  of  that  in 
spiration  of  man  which  cannot  be  denied  without  im 
piety  and  atheism.  We  lie  in  the  lap  of  immense  in 
telligence,  which  makes  us  organs  of  its  activity  and 
receivers  of  its  truth.  When  we  discern  justice,  when 
we  discern  truth,  we  do  nothing  of  ourselves,  but  allow 
a  passage  to  its  beams.  If  we  ask  whence  this  comes, 
if  we  seek  to  pry  into  the  soul  that  causes, —  all  meta 
physics,  all  philosophy  is  at  fault.  Its  presence  or  its 
absence  is  all  we  can  affirm.  Every  man  discerns 
between  the  voluntary  acts  of  his  mind,  and  his  invol 
untary  perceptions.  And  to  his  involuntary  percep 
tions,  he  knows  a  perfect  respect  is  due.  He  may  err 
in  the  expression  of  them,  but  he  knows  that  these 
things  are  so,  like  day  and  night,  not  to  be  disputed. 
All  my  wilful  actions  and  acquisitions  are  but  roving ; 
—  the  most  trivial  reverie,  the  faintest  native  emotion 
are  domestic  and  divine,  Thoughtless  people  contra 
dict  as  readily  the  statement  of  perceptions  as  of  opin 
ions,  or  rather  much  more  readily  ;  for,  they  do  not 
distinguish  between  perception  and  notion.  They  fan 
cy  that  I  choose  to  see  this  or  that  thing.  But  percep 
tion  is  not  whimsical,  but  fatal.  If  I  see  a  trait,  my 
children  will  see  it  after  me,  and  in  course  of  time,  all 


54  ESSAY    II. 

mankind,  —  although  it  may  chance  that  no  one  has 
seen  it  before  me.  For  my  perception  of  it  is  as 
much  a  fact  as  the  sun. 

The  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  divine  spirit  are  so 
pure  that  it  is  profane  to  seek  to  interpose  helps.  It 
must  be  that  when  God  speaketh,  he  should  communi 
cate  not  one  thing,  but  all  things  ;  should  fill  the  world 
with  his  voice  ;  should  scatter  forth  light,  nature,  time, 
souls,  from  the  centre  of  the  present  thought ;  and 
new  date  and  new  create  the  whole.  Whenever 
a  mind  is  simple,  and  receives  a  divine  wisdom, 
then  old  things  pass  away,  —  means,  teachers,  texts, 
temples  fall ;  it  lives  now  and  absorbs  past  and 
future  into  the  present  hour.  All  things  are  made  sa 
cred  by  relation  to  it,  —  one  thing  as  much  as  another. 
All  things  are  dissolved  to  their  centre  by  their  cause, 
and  in  the  universal  miracle  petty  and  particular  mir 
acles  disappear.  This  is  and  must  be.  If,  therefore, 
a  man  claims  to  know  and  speak  of  God,  and  carries 
you  backward  to  the  phraseology  of  some  old  moul 
dered  nation  in  another  country,  in  another  world, 
believe  him  not.  Is  the  acorn  better  than  the  oak 
which  is  its  fulness  and  completion  ?  Is  the  parent 
better  than  the  child  into  whom  he  has  cast  his  ri 
pened  being  ?  Whence  then  this  worship  of  the  past  ? 
The  centuries  are  conspirators  against  the  sanity  and 
majesty  of  the  soul.  Time  and  space  are  but  phy 
siological  colors  which  the  eye  maketh,  but  the  soul  is 
light ;  where  it  is,  is  day  ;  where  it  was,  is  night ;  and 
history  is  an  impertinence  and  an  injury,  if  it  be 
anything  more  than  a  cheerful  apologue  or  parable 
of  my  being  and  becoming. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  55 

Man  is  timid  and  apologetic.  He  is  no  longer  up 
right.  He  dares  not  say  '  I  think,'  '  I  am,'  but  quotes 
some  saint  or  sage.  He  is  ashamed  before  the  blade 
of  grass  or  the  blowing  rose.  These  roses  under  my 
window  make  no  reference  to  former  roses  or  to  bet 
ter  ones  ;  they  are  for  what  they  are  ;  they  exist  with 
God  to-day.  There  is  no  time  to  them.  There  is 
simply  the  rose  ;  it  is  perfect  in  every  moment  of  its 
existence.  Before  a  leaf-bud  has  burst,  its  whole  life 
acts  ;  in  the  full-blown  flower,  there  is  no  more  ;  in 
the  leafless  root,  there  is  no  less.  Its  nature  is  satis 
fied,  and  it  satisfies  nature,  in  all  moments  alike.  There 
is  no  time  to  it.  But  man  postpones  or  remembers  ; 
he  does  not  live  in  the  present,  but  with  reverted  eye 
laments  the  past,  or,  heedless  of  the  riches  that  sur 
round  him,  stands  on  tiptoe  to  foresee  the  future.  He 
cannot  be  happy  and  strong  until  he  too  lives  with 
nature  in  the  present,  above  time. 

This  should  be  plain  enough.  Yet  see  what  strong 
intellects  dare  not  yet  hear  God  himself,  unless  he  speak 
the  phraseology  of  I  know  not  what  David,  or  Jeremi 
ah,  or  Paul.  We  shall  not  always  set  so  great  a  price 
on  a  few  texts,  on  a  few  lives.  We  are  like  children 
who  repeat  by  rote  the  sentences  of  grandames  and 
tutors,  and,  as  they  grow  older,  of  the  men  of  talents 
and  character  they  chance  to  see,  —  painfully  recol 
lecting  the  exact  words  they  spoke  ;  afterwards,  when 
they  come  into  the  point  of  view  which  those  had  who 
uttered  these  sayings,  they  understand  them,  and  are 
willing  to  let  the  words  go  ;  for,  at  any  time,  they  can 
use  words  as  good,  when  occasion  comes.  So  was  it 


56  ESSAY  II. 

with  us,  so  will  it  be,  if  we  proceed.  If  we  live  truly, 
we  shall  see  truly.  It  is  as  easy  for  the  strong  man 
to  be  strong,  as  it  is  for  the  weak  to  be  weak.  When 
we  have  new  perception,  we  shall  gladly  disburthen 
the  memory  of  its  hoarded  treasures  as  old  rubbish. 
When  a  man  lives  with  God,  his  voice  shall  be  as  sweet 
as  the  murmur  of  the  brook  and  the  rustle  of  the  corn. 
And  now  at  last  the  highest  truth  on  this  subject  re 
mains  unsaid  ;  probably ,  cannot  be  said  ;  for  all  that 
we  say  is  the  far  off  remembering  of  the  intuition. 
That  thought,  by  what  I  can  now  nearest  approach  to 
say  it,  is  this.  When  good  is  near  you,  when  you 
have  life  in  yourself, —  it  is  not  by  any  known  or  ap 
pointed  way  ;  you  shall  not  discern  the  foot-prints  of 
any  other ;  you  shall  not  see  the  face  of  man  ;  you 
shall  not  hear  any  name  ;  —  the  way,  the  thought,  the 
good  shall  be  wholly  strange  and  new.  It  shall  ex 
clude  all  other  being.  You  take  the  way  from  man 
not  to  man.  All  persons  that  ever  existed  are  its  fu 
gitive  ministers.  There  shall  be  no  fear  in  it.  Fear 
and  hope  are  alike  beneath  it.  It  asks  nothing. 
There  is  somewhat  low  even  in  hope.  We  are  then 
in  vision.  There  is  nothing  that  can  be  called  grat 
itude  nor  properly  joy.  The  soul  is  raised  over  pas 
sion.  It  seeth  identity  and  eternal  causation.  It  is  a 
perceiving  that  Truth  and  Right  are.  Hence  it  be 
comes  a  Tranquillity  out  of  the  knowing  that  all  things 
go  well.  Vast  spaces  of  nature  ;  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
the  South  Sea  ;  vast  intervals  of  time,  years,  centuries, 
are  of  no  account.  This  which  I  think  and  feel,  un 
derlay  that  former  state  of  life  and  circumstances,  as 


SELF-RELIANCE.  57 

it  does  underlie  my  present,  and  will  always  all  cir 
cumstance,  and  what  is  called  life,  and  what  is  called 
death. 

Life  only  avails,  not  the  having  lived.  Power 
ceases  in  the  instant  of  repose  ;  it  resides  in  the  mo 
ment  of  transition  from  a  past  to  a  new  state  ;  in  the 
shootin'g  of  the  gulf  ;  in  the  darting  to  an  aim.  This 
one  fact  the  world  hates,  that  the  soul  becomes ;  for, 
that  forever  degrades  the  past ;  turns  all  riches  to  pov 
erty  ;  all  reputation  to  a  shame  ;  confounds  the  saint 
with  the  rogue  ;  shoves  Jesus  and  Judas  equally  aside. 
Why  then  do  we  prate  of  self-reliance  ?  Inasmuch 
as  the  soul  is  present,  there  will  be  power  not  confi 
dent  but  agent.  To  talk  of  reliance,  is  a  poor  exter 
nal  way  of  speaking.  Speak  rather  of  that  which  re 
lies,  because  it  works  and  is.  Who  has  more  soul 
than  I,  masters  me,  though  he  should  not  raise  his  fin 
ger.  Round  him  I  must  revolve  by  the  gravitation  of 
spirits  ;  who  has  less,  I  rule  with  like  facility.  We 
fancy  it  rhetoric  when  we  speak  of  eminent  virtue. 
We  do  not  yet  see  that  virtue  is  Height,  and  that  a 
man  or  a  company  of  men  plastic  and  permeable  to 
principles,  by  the  law  of  nature  must  overpower  and 
ride  all  cities,  nations,  kings,  rich  men,  poets,  who  are 
not. 

This  is  the  ultimate  fact  which  we  so  quickly  reach 
on  this  as  on  every  topic,  the  resolution  of  all  into  the 
ever  blessed  ONE.  Virtue  is  the  governor,  the  crea 
tor,  the  reality.  All  things  real  are  so  by  so  much  of 
virtue  as  they  contain.  Hardship,  husbandry,  hunting, 
whaling,  war,  eloquence,  personal  weight,  are  some- 
3* 


58  ESSAY  II. 

what,  and  engage  my  respect  as  examples  of  the 
soul's  presence  and  impure  action.  I  see  the  same 
law  working  in  nature  for  conservation  and  growth. 
The  poise  of  a  planet,  the  bended  tree  recovering  it 
self  from  the  strong  wind,  the  vital  resources  of  every 
vegetable  and  animal,  are  also  demonstrations  of  the 
self-sufficing,  and  therefore  self-relying  soul.  All  his 
tory  from  its  highest  to  its  trivial  passages  is  the  vari 
ous  record  of  this  power. 

Thus  all  concentrates  ;  let  us  not  rove  ;  let  us  sit  at 
home  with  the  cause.  Let  us  stun  and  astonish  the  in 
truding  rabble  of  men  and  books  and  institutions  by  a 
simple  declaration  of  the  divine  fact.  Bid  them  take  the 
shoes  from  off  their  feet,  for  God  is  here  within.  Let  our 
simplicity  judge  them,  and  our  docility  to  our  own  law 
demonstrate  the  poverty  of  nature  and  fortune  beside 
our  native  riches. 

But  now  we  are  a  mob.  Man  does  not  stand  in  awe 
of  man,  nor  is  the  soul  admonished  to  stay  at  home, 
to  put  itself  in  communication  with  the  internal  ocean, 
but  it  goes  abroad  to  beg  a  cup  of  water  of  the  urns 
of  men.  We  must  go  alone.  Isolation  must  pre 
cede  true  society.  I  like  the  silent  church  before  the 
service  begins,  better  than  any  preaching.  How  far 
off,  how  cool,  how  chaste  the  persons  look,  begirt 
each  one  with  a  precinct  or  sanctuary.  So  let  us 
always  sit.  Why  should  we  assume  the  faults  of  our 
friend,  or  wife,  or  father,  or  child,  because  they  sit 
around  our  hearth,  or  are  said  to  have  the  same  blood  ? 
All  men  have  my  blood,  and  I  have  all  men's.  Not 
for  that  will  I  adopt  their  petulance  or  folly,  even  to 


SELF-RELIANCE.  59 

the  extent  of  being  ashamed  of  it.  But  your  isola-  - 
tion  must  not  be  mechanical,  but  spiritual,  that  is,  must 
be  elevation.  At  times  the  whole  world  seems  to  be 
in  conspiracy  to  importune  you  with  emphatic  trifles. 
Friend,  client,  child,  sickness,  fear,  want,  charity,  all 
knock  at  once  at  thy  closet  door  and  say,  '  Come  out 
unto  us.'  —  Do  not  spill  thy  soul ;  do  not  all  descend  ; 
keep  thy  state ;  stay  at  home  in  thine  own  heaven ; 
come  not  for  a  moment  into  their  facts,  into  their  hub 
bub  of  conflicting  appearances,  but  let  in  the  light  of 
thy  law  on  their  confusion.  The  power  men  possess 
to  annoy  me,  I  give  them  by  a  weak  curiosity.  No  man 
can  come  near  me  but  through  my  act.  "  What  we 
love  that  we  have,  but  by  desire  we  bereave  our 
selves  of  the  love." 

If  we  cannot  at  once  rise  to  the  sanctities  of  obedi 
ence  and  faith,  let  us  at  least  resist  our  temptations, 
let  us  enter  into  the  state  of  war,  and  wake  Thor  arid 
Woden,  courage  and  constancy  in  our  Saxon  breasts. 
This  is  to  be  done  in  our  smooth  times  by  speaking 
the  truth.  Check  this  lying  hospitality  and  lying  af 
fection.  Live  no  longer  to  the  expectation  of  these 
deceived  and  deceiving  people  with  whom  we  con 
verse.  Say  to  them,  O  father,  O  mother,  O  wife, 
O  brother,  O  friend,  I  have  lived  with  you  after  ap 
pearances  hitherto.  Henceforward  I  am  the  truth's. 
Be  it  known  unto  you  that  henceforward  I  obey  no 
law  less  than  the  eternal  law.  I  will  have  no  cove 
nants  but  proximities.  I  shall  endeavor  to  nourish  my 
parents,  to  support  my  family,  to  be  the  chaste  hus 
band  of  one  wife,  —  but  these  relations  I  must  fill  after 


60  ESSAY    II, 

a  new  and  unprecedented  way.  I  appeal  from  your 
customs.  I  must  be  myself.  I  cannot  break  myself 
any  longer  for  you,  or  you.  If  you  can  love  me  for 
what  I  am,  we  shall  be  the  happier.  If  you  cannot,  I 
will  still  seek  to  deserve  that  you  should.  I  must  be 
myself.  I  will  not  hide  my  tastes  or  aversions.  I 
will  so  trust  that  what  is  deep  is  holy,  that  I  will  do 
strongly  before  the  sun  and  moon  whatever  inly  re 
joices  me,  and  the  heart  appoints.  If  you  are  noble, 
I  will  love  you ;  if  you  are  not,  I  will  not  hurt  you 
and  myself  by  hypocritical  attentions.  If  you  are 
true,  but  not  in  the  same  truth  with  me,  cleave  to  your 
companions  ;  I  will  seek  my  own.  I  do  this  not  self 
ishly,  but  humbly  and  truly.  It  is  alike  your  interest 
and  mine  and  all  men's,  however  long  we  have  dwelt 
in  lies,  to  live  in  truth.  Does  this  sound  harsh  to-day  ? 
You  will  soon  love  what  is  dictated  by  your  nature 
as  well  as  mine,  and  if  we  follow  the  truth,  it  will 
bring  us  out  safe  at  last.  —  But  so  you  may  give 
these  friends  pain.  Yes,  but  I  cannot  sell  my  liber 
ty  and  my  power,  to  save  their  sensibility.  Besides, 
all  persons  have  their  moments  of  reason  when  they 
look  out  into  the  region  of  absolute  truth ;  then  will 
they  justify  me  and  do  the  same  thing. 

The  populace  think  that  your  rejection  of  popular 
standards  is  a  rejection  of  all  standard,  and  mere  an- 
tinomianism  ;  and  the  bold  sensualist  will  use  the 
name  of  philosophy  to  gild  his  crimes.  But  the  law 
of  consciousness  abides.  There  are  two  confession 
als,  in  one  or  the  other  of  which  we  must  be  shriven. 
You  may  fulfil  your  round  of  duties  by  clearing 


SELF-RELIANCE.  61 

yourself  in  the  direct,  or,  in  the  reflex  way.  Con 
sider  whether  you  have  satisfied  your  relations  to 
father,  mother,  cousin,  neighbor,  town,  cat,  and 
dog ;  whether  any  of  these  can  upbraid  you.  But 
I  may  also  neglect  this  reflex  standard,  and  ab 
solve  me  to  myself.  I  have  my  own  stern  claims 
and  perfect  circle.  It  denies  the  name  of  duty  to 
many  offices  that  are  called  duties.  But  if  I  can 
discharge  its  debts,  it  enables  me  to  dispense  with  the 
popular  code.  If  any  one  imagines  that  this  law  is 
lax,  let  him  keep  its  commandment  one  day. 

And  truly  it  demands  something  godlike  in  him 
who  has  cast  off  the  common  motives  of  humanity, 
and  has  ventured  to  trust  himself  for  a  task-master. 
High  be  his  heart,  faithful  his  will,  clear  his  sight, 
that  he  may  in  good  earnest  be  doctrine,  society,  law 
to  himself,  that  a  simple  purpose  may  be  to  him  as 
strong  as  iron  necessity  is  to  others. 

If  any  man  consider  the  present  aspects  of  what  is 
called  by  distinction  society,  he  will  see  the  need  of 
these  ethics.  The  sinew  and  heart  of  man  seem  to 
be  drawn  out,  and  we  are  become  timorous  despond 
ing  whimperers.  We  are  afraid  of  truth,  afraid  of 
fortune,  afraid  of  death,  and  afraid  of  each  other. 
Our  age  yields  no  great  and  perfect  persons.  We 
want  men  and  women  who  shall  renovate  life  and 
our  social  state,  but  we  see  that  most  natures  are  in 
solvent  ;  cannot  satisfy  their  own  wants,  have  an  am 
bition  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  practical  force, 
and  so  do  lean  and  beg  day  and  night  continually. 
Our  housekeeping  is  mendicant,  our  arts,  our  occupa- 


62  ESSAY    II. 

tions,  our  marriages,  our  religion  we  have  not  chosen, 
but  society  has  chosen  for  us.  We  are  parlor  sol 
diers.  The  rugged  battle  of  fate,  where  strength  is 
born,  we  shun. 

If  our  young  men  miscarry  in  their  first  enterprizes, 
they  lose  all  heart.  If  the  young  merchant  fails, 
men  say  he  is  ruined.  If  the  finest  genius  studies  at 
one  of  our  colleges,  and  is  not  installed  in  an  office 
within  one  year  afterwards  in  the  cities  or  suburbs  of 
Boston  or  New  York,  it  seems  to  his  friends  and  to 
himself  that  he  is  right  in  being  disheartened  and  in 
complaining  the  rest  of  his  life.  A  sturdy  lad  from 
New  Hampshire  or  Vermont,  who  in  turn  tries  all  the 
professions,  who  teams  it,  farms  it,  peddles,  keeps  a 
school,  preaches,  edits  a  newspaper,  goes  to  Congress, 
buys  a  township,  and  so  forth,  in  successive  years, 
and  always,  like  a  cat,  falls  on  his  feet,  is  worth 
a  hundred  of  these  city  dolls.  He  walks  abreast 
with  his  days,  and  feels  no  shame  in  not  '  study 
ing  a  profession,'  for  he  does  not  postpone  his  life, 
but  lives  already.  He  has  not  one  chance,  but  a 
hundred  chances.  Let  a  stoic  arise  who  shall  reveal 
the  resources  of  man,  and  tell  men  they  are  not  lean 
ing  willows,  but  can  and  must  detach  themselves  ;  that 
with  the  exercise  of  self-trust,  new  powers  shall  ap 
pear  ;  that  a  man  is  the  word  made  flesh,  born  to  shed 
healing  to  the  nations,  that  he  should  be  ashamed  of 
our  compassion,  and  that  the  moment  he  acts  from 
himself,  tossing  the  laws,  the  books,  idolatries,  and 
customs  out  of  the  window,  —  we  pity  him  no  more 


SELF-RELIANCE.  63 

but  thank  and  revere  him,  —  and  that  teacher  shall  re 
store  the  life  of  man  to  splendor,  and  make  his  name 
dear  to  all  History. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  greater  self-reliance,  —  a 
new  respect  for  the  divinity  in  man,  —  must  work  a 
revolution  in  all  the  offices  and  relations  of  men  ;  in 
their  religion  ;  in  their  education ;  in  their  pursuits ; 
their  modes  of  living  ;  their  association  ;  in  their  prop 
erty  ;  in  their  speculative  views. 

1.  In  what  prayers  do  men  allow  themselves  !  That 
which  they  call  a  holy  office,  is  not  so  much  as  brave 
and  manly.  Prayer  looks  abroad  and  asks  for  some 
foreign  addition  to  come  through  some  foreign  virtue, 
and  loses  itself  in  endless  mazes  of  natural  and  su 
pernatural,  and  mediatorial  and  miraculous.  Prayer 
that  craves  a  particular  commodity  —  any  thing  less 
than  all  good,  is  vicious.  Prayer  is  the  contem 
plation  of  the  facts  of  life  from  the  highest  point 
of  view.  It  is  the  soliloquy  of  a  beholding  and 
jubilant  soul.  It  is  the  spirit  of  God  pronouncing 
his  works  good.  But  prayer  as  a  means  to  ef 
fect  a  private  end,  is  theft  and  meanness.  It  sup 
poses  dualism  and  not  unity  in  nature  and  con 
sciousness.  As  soon  as  the  man  is  at  one  with  God, 
he  will  not  beg.  He  will  then  see  prayer  in  all  ac 
tion.  The  prayer  of  the  farmer  kneeling  in  his  field 
to  weed  it,  the  prayer  of  the  rower  kneeling  with  the 
stroke  of  his  oar,  are  true  prayers  heard  through 
out  nature,  though  for  cheap  ends.  Caratach,  in 
Fletcher's  Bonduca,  when  admonished  to  inquire  the 
mind  of  the  god  Audate,  replies, 


64  ESSAY  II. 

"  His  hidden  meaning  lies  in  our  endeavors, 
Our  valors  are  our  best  gods." 

Another  sort  of  false  prayers  are  our  regrets. 
Discontent  is  the  want  of  self-reliance  :  it  is  infirm 
ity  of  will.  Regret  calamities,  if  you  can  thereby 
help  the  sufferer ;  if  not,  attend  your  own  work,  and 
already  the  evil  begins  to  be  repaired.  Our  sympa 
thy  is  just  as  base.  We  come  to  them  who  weep 
foolishly,  and  sit  down  and  cry  for  company,  instead 
of  imparting  to  them  truth  and  health  in  rough  elec 
tric  shocks,  putting  them  once  more  in  communica 
tion  with  the  soul.  The  secret  of  fortune  is  joy  in 
our  hands.  Welcome  evermore  to  gods  and  men  is 
the  self-helping  man.  For  him  all  doors  are  flung 
wide.  Him  all  tongues  greet,  all  honors  crown,  all 
eyes  follow  with  desire.  Our  love  goes  out  to  him 
and  embraces  him,  because  he  did  not  need  it.  We 
solicitously  and  apologetically  caress  and  celebrate 
him,  because  he  held  on  his  way  and  scorned  our  dis 
approbation.  The  gods  love  him  because  men  hated 
him.  "  To  the  persevering  mortal,"  said  Zoroaster, 
"  the  blessed  Immortals  are  swift." 

As  men's  prayers  are  a  disease  of  the  will,  so  are 
their  creeds  a  disease  of  the  intellect.  They  say 
with  those  foolish  Israelites,  '  Let  not  God  speak  to  us, 
lest  we  die.  Speak  thou,  speak  any  man  with  us, 
and  we  will  obey.'  Everywhere  I  am  bereaved  of 
meeting  God  in  my  brother,  because  he  has  shut  his 
own  temple  doors,  and  recites  fables  merely  of  his 
brother's,  or  his  brother's  brother's  God.  Every  new 
mind  is  a  new  classification.  If  it  prove  a  mind  of 


SELF-RELIANCE.  65 

uncommon  activity  and  power,  a  Locke,  a  Lavoisier,  a 
Hutton,  a  Bentham,  a  Spurzheim,  it  imposes  its  clas 
sification  on  other  men,  and  lo  !  a  new  system.  In 
proportion  always  to  the  depth  of  the  thought,  and  so 
to  the  number  of  the  objects  it  touches  and  brings 
within  reach  of  the  pupil,  is  his  complacency.  But 
chiefly  is  this  apparent  in  creeds  and  churches,  which 
are  also  classifications  of  some  powerful  mind  acting 
on  the  great  elemental  thought  of  Duty,  and  man's 
relation  to  the  Highest.  Such  is  Calvinism,  Quaker 
ism,  Swedenborgianism.  The  pupil  takes  the  same 
delight  in  subordinating  every  thing  to  the  new  termi 
nology  that  a  girl  does  who  has  just  learned  botany, 
in  seeing  a  new  earth  and  new  seasons  thereby.  It 
will  happen  for  a  time,  that  the  pupil  will  feel  a  real 
debt  to  the  teacher,  —  will  find  his  intellectual  power 
has  grown  by  the  study  of  his  writings.  This  will 
continue  until  he  has  exhausted  his  master's  mind. 
But  in  all  unbalanced  minds,  the  classification  is 
idolized,  passes  for  the  end,  and  not  for  a  speedily 
exhaustible  means,  so  that  the  walls  of  the  system 
blend  to  their  eye  in  the  remote  horizon  with  the 
walls  of  the  universe  ;  the  luminaries  of  heaven  seem 
to  them  hung  on  the  arch  their  master  built.  They 
cannot  imagine  how  you  aliens  have  any  right  to  see, 
—  how  you  can  see  ;  '  It  must  be  somehow  that  you 
stole  the  light  from  us.'  They  do  not  yet  perceive, 
that,  light  unsystematic,  indomitable,  will  break  into 
any  cabin,  even  into  theirs.  Let  them  chirp  awhile 
and  call  it  their  own.  If  they  are  honest  and  do 
well,  presently  their  neat  new  pinfold  will  be  too 


66  ESSAY    II. 

strait  and  low,  will  crack,  will  lean,  will  rot  and  van 
ish,  and  the  immortal  light,  all  young  and  joyful, 
million-orbed,  million-colored,  will  beam  over  the 
universe  as  on  the  first  morning. 

2.  It  is  for  want  of  self-culture  that  the  idol  of  Tra 
velling,  the  idol  of  Italy,  of  England,  of  Egypt,  re 
mains  for  all  educated  Americans.  They  who  made 
England,  Italy,  or  Greece  venerable  in  the  imagina 
tion,  did  so  not  by  rambling  round  creation  as  a  moth 
round  a  lamp,  but  by  sticking  fast  where  they  were, 
like  an  axis  of  the  earth.  In  manly  hours,  we  feel 
that  duty  is  our  place,  and  that  the  merry  men  of  cir 
cumstance  should  follow  as  they  may.  The  soul  is 
no  traveller :  the  wise  man  stays  at  home  with  the 
soul,  and  when  his  necessities,  his  duties,  on  any  oc 
casion  call  him  from  his  house,  or  into  foreign  lands, 
he  is  at  home  still,  and  is  not  gadding  abroad  from 
himself,  and  shall  make  men  sensible  by  the  expres 
sion  of  his  countenance,  that  he  goes  the  missionary 
of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  visits  cities  and  men  like  a 
sovereign,  and  not  like  an  interloper  or  a  valet. 

I  have  no  churlish  objection  to  the  circumnavigation 
of  the  globe,  for  the  purposes  of  art,  of  study,  and 
benevolence,  so  that  the  man  is  first  domesticated,  or 
does  not  go  abroad  with  the  hope  of  finding  some 
what  greater  than  he  knows.  He  who  travels  to  be 
amused,  or  to  get  somewhat  which  he  does  not  carry, 
travels  away  from  himself,  and  grows  old  even  in 
youth  among  old  things.  In  Thebes,  in  Palmyra,  his 
will  and  mind  have  become  old  and  dilapidated  as 
they.  He  carries  ruins  to  ruins. 


SELF-RELIANCE.  67 

Travelling  is  a  fool's  paradise.  We  owe  to  our 
first  journeys  the  discovery  that  place  is  nothing.  At 
home  I  dream  that  at  Naples,  at  Rome,  I  can  be  in 
toxicated  with  beauty,  and  lose  my  sadness.  I  pack 
my  trunk,  embrace  my  friends,  embark  on  the  sea, 
and  at  last  wake  up  in  Naples,  and  there  beside  me  is 
the  stern  Fact,  the  sad  self,  unrelenting,  identical,  that 
I  fled  from.  I  seek  the  Vatican,  and  the  palaces.  I 
affect  to  be  intoxicated  with  sights  and  suggestions,  but 
I  am  not  intoxicated.  My  giant  goes  with  me  wherever 
I  go. 

3.  But  the  rage  of  travelling  is  itself  only  a  symp 
tom  of  a  deeper  unsoundness  affecting  the  whole  intel 
lectual  action.  The  intellect  is  vagabond,  and  the 
universal  system  of  education  fosters  restlessness* 
Our  minds  travel  when  our  bodies  are  forced  to  stay 
at  home.  We  imitate ;  and  what  is  imitation  but 
the  travelling  of  the  mind  ?  Our  houses  are  built 
with  foreign  taste  ;  our  shelves  are  garnished  with 
foreign  ornaments ;  our  opinions,  our  tastes,  our 
whole  minds  lean,  and  follow  the  Past  and  the  Distant, 
as  the  eyes  of  a  maid  follow  her  mistress.  The  soul 
created  the  arts  wherever  they  have  flourished.  It 
was  in  his  own  mind  that  the  artist  sought  his  model. 
It  was  an  application  of  his  own  thought  to  the  thing 
to  be  done  and  the  conditions  to  be  observed.  And 
why  need  we  copy  the  Doric  or  the  Gothic  model  ? 
Beauty,  convenience,  grandeur  of  thought,  and  quaint 
expression  are  as  near  to  us  as  to  any,  and  if  the 
American  artist  will  study  with  hope  and  love  the 
precise  thing  to  be  done  by  him,  considering  the  cli- 


68  ESSAY   II. 

mate,  the  soil,  the  length  of  the  day,  the  wants  of  the 
people,  the  habit  and  form  of  the  government,  he  will 
create  a  house  in  which  all  these  will  find  them 
selves  fitted,  and  taste  and  sentiment  will  be  satisfied 
also. 

Insist  on  yourself;  never  imitate.  Your  own  gift 
you  can  present  every  moment  with  the  cumulative 
force  of  a  whole  life's  cultivation  ;  but  of  the  adopted 
talent  of  another,  you  have  only  an  extemporaneous, 
half  possession.  That  which  each  can  do  best,  none 
but  his  Maker  can  teach  him.  No  man  yet  knows 
what  it  is,  nor  can,  till  that  person  has  exhibited  it. 
Where  is  the  master  who  could  have  taught  Shak 
speare  ?  Where  is  the  master  who  could  have  in 
structed  Franklin,  or  Washington,  or  Bacon,  or  New 
ton.  Every  great  man  is  an  unique.  The  Scipionism 
of  Scipio  is  precisely  that  part  he  could  not  bor 
row.  If  any  body  will  tell  me  whom  the  great  man 
imitates  in  the  original  crisis  when  he  performs  a 
great  act,  I  will  tell  him  who  else  than  himself  can 
teach  him.  Shakspeare  will  never  be  made  by  the 
study  of  Shakspeare.  Do  that  which  is  assigned  thee, 
and  thou  canst  not  hope  too  much  or  dare  too  much. 
There  is  at  this  moment,  there  is  for  me  an  utterance 
bare  and  grand  as  that  of  the  colossal  chisel  of  Phi 
dias,  or  trowel  of  the  Egyptians,  or  the  pen  of  Moses, 
or  Dante,  but  different  from  all  these.  Not  possibly 
will  the  soul  all  rich,  all  eloquent,  with  thousand-cloven 
tongue,  deign  to  repeat  itself;  but  if  I  can  hear  what 
these  patriarchs  say,  surely  I  can  reply  to  them  in  the 
same  pitch  of  voice  :  for  the  ear  and  the  tongue  are 


SELF-RELIANCE.  69 

two  organs  of  one  nature.  Dwell  up  there  in  the  sim 
ple  and  noble  regions  of  thy  life,  obey  thy  heart,  and 
thou  shalt  reproduce  the  Foreworld  again. 

4.  As  our  Religion,  our  Education,  our  Art  look 
abroad,  so  does  our  spirit  of  society.  All  men 
plume  themselves  on  the  improvement  of  society,  and 
no  man  improves. 

Society  never  advances.  It  recedes  as  fast  on  one 
side  as  it  gains  on  the  other.  Its  progress  is  only  ap 
parent,  like  the  workers  of  a  treadmill.  It  undergoes 
continual  changes  :  it  is  barbarous,  it  is  civilized,  it  is* 
christianized,  it  is  rich,  it  is  scientific  ;  but  this  change 
is  not  amelioration.  For  every  thing  that  is  given, 
something  is  taken.  Society  acquires  new  arts  and 
loses  old  instincts.  What  a  contrast  between  the  well- 
clad,  reading,  writing,  thinking  American,  with  a 
watch,  a  pencil,  and  a  bill  of  exchange  in  his  pocket, 
and  the  naked  New  Zealander,  whose  property  is  a 
club,  a  spear,  a  mat,  and  an  undivided  twentieth  of  a 
shed  to  sleep  under.  But  compare  the  health  of  the  two 
men,  and  you  shall  see  that  his  aboriginal  strength  the 
white  man  has  lost.  If  the  traveller  tell  us  truly, 
strike  the  savage  with  a  broad  axe,  and  in  a  day  or 
two  the  flesh  shall  unite  and  heal  as  if  you  struck 
the  blow  into  soft  pitch,  and  the  same  blow  shall  send 
the  white  to  his  grave. 

The  civilized  man  has  built  a  coach,  but  has  lost  the 
use  of  his  feet.  He  is  supported  on  crutches,  but 
loses  so  much  support  of  muscle.  He  has  got  a  fine 
Geneva  watch,  but  he  has  lost  the  skill  to  tell  the  hour 
by  the  sun.  A  Greenwich  nautical  almanac  he  has, 


70  ESSAY    II. 

and  so  being  sure  of  the  information  when  he  wants 
it,  the  man  in  the  street  does  not  know  a  star  in  the 
sky.  The  solstice  he  does  not  observe  ;  the  equi 
nox  he  knows  as  little  ;  and  the  whole  bright  calendar 
of  the  year  is  without  a  dial  in  his  mind.  His  note 
books  impair  his  memory  ;  his  libraries  overload  his 
wit;  the  insurance  office  increases  the  number  of 
accidents  ;  and  it  may  be  a  question  whether  machi 
nery  does  not  encumber  ;  whether  we  have  not  lost 
by  refinement  some  energy,  by  a  Christianity  en 
trenched  in  establishments  and  forms,  some  vigor  of 
wild  virtue.  For  every  stoic  was  a  stoic  ;  but  in 
Christendom  where  is  the  Christian  ? 

There  is  no  more  deviation  in  the  moral  standard 
than  in  the  standard  of  height  or  bulk.  No  greater 
men  are  now  than  ever  were.  A  singular  equality 
may  be  observed  between  the  great  men  of  the  first 
and  of  the  last  ages  ;  nor  can  all  the  science,  art,  re 
ligion  and  philosophy  of  the  nineteenth  century  avail 
to  educate  greater  men  than  Plutarch's  heroes,  three 
or  four  and  twenty  centuries  ago.  Not  in  time  is 
the  race  progressive.  Phocion,  Socrates,  Anaxago- 
ras,  Diogenes,  are  great  men,  but  they  leave  no  class. 
He  who  is  really  of  their  class  will  not  be  called  by 
their  name,  but  be  wholly  his  own  man,  and,  in  his  turn 
the  founder  of  a  sect.  The  arts  and  inventions  of 
each  period  are  only  its  costume,  and  do  not  invigo 
rate  men.  The  harm  of  the  improved  machinery 
may  compensate  its  good.  Hudson  and  Behring 
accomplished  so  much  in  their  fishing-boats,  as  to  as 
tonish  Parry  and  Franklin,  whose  equipment  exhatfst- 


SELF-RELIANCE.  71 

ed  the  resources  of  science  and  art.  Galileo,  with 
an  opera-glass,  discovered  a  more  splendid  series  of 
facts  than  any  one  since.  Columbus  found  the  New 
World  in  an  undecked  boat.  It  is  curious  to  see  the 
periodical  disuse  and  perishing  of  means  and  ma 
chinery  which  were  introduced  with  loud  laudation, 
a  few  years  or  centuries  before.  The  great  genius 
returns  to  essential  man.  We  reckoned  the  improve 
ments  of  the  art  of  war  among  the  triumphs  of  sci 
ence,  and  yet  Napoleon  conquered  Europe  by  the 
Bivouac,  which  consisted  of  falling  back  on  naked* 
valor,  and  disencumbering  it  of  all  aids.  The  Em 
peror  held  it  impossible  to  make  a  perfect  army, 
says  Las  Casas,  "  without  abolishing  our  arms,  mag 
azines,  commissaries,  and  carriages,  until  in  imitation 
of  the  Roman  custom,  the  soldier  should  receive  his 
supply  of  corn,  grind  it  in  his  hand-mill,  and  bake  his 
bread  himself." 

Society  is  a  wave.  The  wave  moves  onward,  but 
the  water  of  which  it  is  composed,  does  not.  The 
same  particle  does  not  rise  from  the  valley  to  the 
ridge.  Its  unity  is  only  phenomenal.  The  persons 
who  make  up  a  nation  to-day,  next  year  die,  and 
their  experience  with  them. 

And  so  the  reliance  on  Property,  including  the  re 
liance  on  governments  which  protect  it,  is  the  want 
of  self-reliance.  Men  have  looked  away  from  them 
selves  and  at  things  so  long,  that  they  have  come  to 
esteem  what  they  call  the  soul's  progress,  namely, 
the  religious,  learned,  and  civil  institutions,  as  guards 
of  property,  and  they  deprecate  assaults  on  these, 


72  ESSAY    II. 

because  they  feel  them  to  be  assaults  on  property 
They  measure  their  esteem  of  each  other,  by  what  each 
has,  and  not  by  what  each  is.  But  a  cultivated  man 
becomes  ashamed  of  his  property,  ashamed  of  what 
he  has,  out  of  new  respect  for  his  being.  Especially 
he  hates  what  he  has,  if  he  see  that  it  is  accidental,  — 
came  to  him  by  inheritance,  or  gift,  or  crime  ;  then 
he  feels  that  it  is  not  having  ;  it  does  not  belong  to 
him,  has  no  root  in  him,  and  merely  lies  there,  be 
cause  no  revolution  or  no  robber  takes  it  away.  But 
*that  which  a  man  is,  does  always  by  necessity  ac 
quire,  and  what  the  man  acquires  is  permanent  and 
living  property,  which  does  not  wait  the  beck  of  ru 
lers,  or  mobs,  or  revolutions,  or  fire,  or  storm,  or 
bankruptcies,  but  perpetually  renews  itself  wherever 
the  man  is  put.  "  Thy  lot  or  portion  of  life,"  said 
the  Caliph  Ali,  "  is  seeking  after  thee  ;  therefore  be 
at  rest  from  seeking  after  it."  Our  dependence  on 
these  foreign  goods  leads  us  to  our  slavish  respect  for 
numbers.  The  political  parties  meet  in  numerous 
conventions ;  the  greater  the  concourse,  and  with 
each  new  uproar  of  announcement,  The  delega 
tion  from  Essex !  The  Democrats  from  New  Hamp 
shire  !  The  Whigs  of  Maine  !  the  young  patriot  feels 
himself  stronger  than  before  by  a  new  thousand  of 
eyes  and  arms.  In  like  manner  the  reformers  sum 
mon  conventions,  and  vote  and  resolve  in  multitude. 
But  not  so,  O  friends  !  will  the  God  deign  to  enter 
and  inhabit  you,  but  by  a  method  precisely  the  re 
verse.  It  is  only  as  a  man  puts  off  from  himself  all 
external  support,  and  stands  alone,  that  I  see  him  to 


SELF-RELIANCE.  73 

be  strong  and  to  prevail.  He  is  weaker  by  every 
recruit  to  his  banner.  Is  not  a  man  better  than  a 
town  ?  Ask  nothing  of  men,  and  in  the  endless  mu 
tation,  thou  only  firm  column  must  presently  appear 
the  upholder  of  all  that  surrounds  thee.  He  who 
knows  that  power  is  in  the  soul,  that  he  is  weak  on 
ly  because  he  has  looked  for  good  out  of  him  and 
elsewhere,  and  so  perceiving,  throws  himself  unhesi 
tatingly  on  his  thought,  instantly  rights  himself,  stands 
in  the  erect  position,  commands  his  limbs,  works 
miracles  ;  just  as  a  man  who  stands  on  his  feet  is 
stronger  than  a  man  who  stands  on  his  head. 

So  use  all  that  is  called  Fortune.  Most  men  gamble 
with  her,  and  gain  all,  and  lose  all,  as  her  wheel  rolls. 
Bu  tdo  thou  leave  as  unlawful  these  winnings,  and 
deal  with  Cause  and  Effect,  the  chancellors  of  God.  In 
the  Will  work  and  acquire,  and  thou  hast  chained  the 
wheel  of  Chance,  and  shalt  always  drag  her  after 
thee.  A  political  victory,  a  rise  of  rents,  the  re 
covery  of  your  sick,  or  the  return  of  your  absent 
friend,  or  some  other  quite  external  event,  raises 
your  spirits,  and  you  think  good  days  are  preparing 
for  you.  Do  not  believe  it.  It  can  never  be  so. 
Nothing  can  bring  you  pejice  but  yourself.  No 
thing  can  bring  you  peace  but  the  triumph  of  prin 
ciples. 


COMPENSATION. 


ESSAY    III. 


COMPENSATION 


EVER  since  I  was  a  boy,  I  have  wished  to  write  a 
discourse  on  Compensation  :  for,  it  seemed  to  me 
when  very  young,  that,  on  this  subject,  Life  was  ahead 
of  theology,  and  the  people  knew  more  than  the 
preachers  taught.  The  documents  too,  from  which 
the  doctrine  is  to  be  drawn,  charmed  my  fancy  by 
their  endless  variety,  and  lay  always  before  me, 
even  in  sleep  ;  for  they  are  the  tools  in  our  hands,  the 
bread  in  our  basket,  the  transactions  of  the  street, 
the  farm,  and  the  dwelling-house,  the  greetings,  the 
relations,  the  debts  and  credits,  the  influence  of  char 
acter,  the  nature  and  endowment  of  all  men.  It 
seemed  to  me  also  that  in  it  might  be  shown  men  a 
ray  of  divinity,  the  present  action  of  the  Soul  of  this 
world,  clean  from  all  vestige  of  tradition,  and  so  the 
heart  of  man  might  be  bathed  by  an  inundation  of 
eternal  love,  conversing  with  that  which  he  knows 


78  ESSAY    III. 

was  always  and  always  must  be,  because  it  really  is 
now.  It  appeared,  moreover,  that  if  this  doctrine 
could  be  stated  in  terms  with  any  resemblance  to 
those  bright  intuitions  in  which  this  truth  is  sometimes 
revealed  to  us,  it  would  be  a  star  in  many  dark  hours 
and  crooked  passages  in  our  journey  that  would  not 
suffer  us  to  lose  our  way. 

I  was  lately  confirmed  in  these  desires  by  hearing 
a  sermon  at  church.  The  preacher,  a  man  esteemed 
for  his  orthodoxy,  unfolded  in  the  ordinary  manner 
the  doctrine  of  the  Last  Judgment.  He  assumed  that 
judgment  is  not  executed  in  this  world ;  that  the 
wicked  are  successful ;  that  the  good  are  miserable  ; 
and  then  urged  from  reason  and  from  Scripture  a 
compensation  to  be  made  to  both  parties  in  the  next 
life.  No  offence  appeared  to  be  taken  by  the  con 
gregation  at  this  doctrine.  As  far  as  I  could  observe, 
when  the  meeting  broke  up,  they  separated  without 
remark  on  the  sermon. 

Yet  what  was  the  import  of  this  teaching  ?  What 
did  the  preacher  mean  by  saying  that  the  good  are 
miserable  in  the  present  life  ?  Was  it  that  houses  and 
lands,  offices,  wine,  horses,  dress,  luxury,  are  had  by 
unprincipled  men,  whilst  the  saints  are  poor  and  de 
spised  ;  and  that  a  compensation  is  to  be  made  to 
these  last  hereafter,  by  giving  them  the  like  gratifi 
cations  another  day,  —  bank-stock  and  doubloons, 
venison  and  champagne  ?  This  must  be  the  com 
pensation  intended  ;  for,  what  else  ?  Is  it  that  they 
are  to  have  leave  to  pray  and  praise  ?  to  love  and 
serve  men  ?  Why,  that  they  can  do  now.  The 


COMPENSATION.  79 

legitimate  inference  the  disciple  would  draw,  was  ; 
1  We  are  to  have  such  a  good  time  as  the  sinners  have 
now  ;'  —  or,  to  push  it  to  its  extreme  import,  — c  You 
sin  now ;  we  shall  sin  by-and-by ;  we  would  sin 
now,  if  we  could  ;  not  being  successful,  we  expect 
our  revenge  tomorrow.' 

The  fallacy  lay  in  the  immense  concession  that  the 
bad  are  successful  ;  that  justice  is  not  done  now. 
The  blindness  of  the  preacher  consisted  in  deferring 
to  the  base  estimate  of  the  market  of  what  constitutes 
a  manly  success,  instead  of  confronting  and  convict 
ing  the  world  from  the  truth ;  announcing  the  Presence 
of  the  Soul ;  the  omnipotence  of  the  Will :  and  so 
establishing  the  standard  of  good  and  ill,  of  success 
and  falsehood,  and  summoning  the  dead  to  its  present 
tribunal. 

I  find  a  similar  base  tone  in  the  popular  religious 
works  of  the  day,  and  the  same  doctrines  assumed  by 
the  literary  men  when  occasionally  they  treat  the  re 
lated  topics.  I  think  that  our  popular  theology  has 
gained  in  decorum,  and  not  in  principle,  over  the  su 
perstitions  it  has  displaced.  But  men  are  better  than 
this  theology.  Their  daily  life  gives  it  the  lie. 
Every  ingenuous  and  aspiring  soul  leaves  the  doc 
trine  behind  him  in  his  own  experience ;  and  all  men 
feel  sometimes  the  falsehood  which  they  cannot  de 
monstrate.  For  men  are  wiser  than  they  know. 
That  which  they  hear  in  schools  and  pulpits  without 
afterthought,  if  said  in  conversation,  would  probably 
be  questioned  in  silence.  If  a  man  dogmatize  in  a 
mixed  company  on  Providence  and  the  divine  laws, 


80  ESSAY    III. 

he  is  answered  by  a  silence  which  conveys  well 
enough  to  an  observer  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  hearer, 
but  his  incapacity  to  make  his  own  statement. 

I  shall  attempt  in  this  and  the  following  chapter  to 
record  some  facts  that  indicate  the  path  of  the  law  of 
Compensation  ;  happy  beyond  my  expectation,  if  I 
shall  truly  draw  the  smallest  arc  of  this  circle. 

POLARITY,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in  every 
part  of  nature  ;  in  darkness  and  light ;  in  heat  and 
cold  ;  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters ;  in  male  and  fe 
male  ;  in  the  inspiration  and  expiration  of  plants  and 
animals ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart ;  in 
the  undulations  of  fluids,  and  of  sound  ;  in  the  cen 
trifugal  and  centripetal  gravity  ;  in  electricity,  gal 
vanism,  and  chemical  affinity.  Superinduce  magnet 
ism  at  one  end  of  a  needle  ;  the  opposite  magnetism 
takes  place  at  the  other  end.  If  the  south  attracts, 
the  north  repels.  To  empty  here,  you  must  con 
dense  there.  An  inevitable  dualism  bisects  nature, 
so  that  each  thing  is  a  half,  and  suggests  another 
thing  to  make  it  whole  ;  as  spirit,  matter ;  man, 
woman  ;  subjective,  objective  ;  in,  out ;  upper,  under  ; 
motion,  rest ;  yea,  nay. 

Whilst  the  world  is  thus  dual,  so  is  every  one  of 
its  parts.  The  entire  system  of  things  gets  repre 
sented  in  every  particle.  There  is  somewhat  that  re 
sembles  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  day  and  night, 
man  and  woman,  in  a  single  neeclle  of  the  pine,  in  a 
kernel  of  corn,  in  each  individual  of  every  animal 
tribe.  The  reaction  so  grand  in  the  elements,  is  re- 


COMPENSATION.  81 

peated  within  these  small  boundaries.  For  example, 
in  the  animal  kingdom,  the  physiologist  has  observed 
that  no  creatures  are  favorites,  but  a  certain  compen 
sation  balances  every  gift  and  every  defect.  A  surplus 
age  given  to  one  part  is  paid  out  of  a  reduction  from  an 
other  part  of  the  same  creature.  If  the  head  and  neck 
are  enlarged,  the  trunk  and  extremities  are  cut  short. 

The  theory  of  the  mechanic  forces  is  another  ex 
ample.  What  we  gain  in  power  is  lost  in  time  ;  and  the 
converse.  The  periodic  or  compensating  errors  of 
the  planets,  is  another  instance.  The  influences  of 
climate  and  soil  in  political  history  are  another.  The 
cold  climate  invigorates.  The  barren  soil  does  not 
breed  fevers,  crocodiles,  tigers,  or  scorpions. 

The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature  and  condi 
tion  of  man.  Every  excess  causes  a  defect ;  every 
defect  an  excess.  Every  sweet  hath  its  sour  ;  every 
evil  its  good.  Every  faculty  which  is  a  receiver  of 
pleasure,  has  an  equal  penalty  put  on  its  abuse.  It  is 
to  answer  for  its  moderation  with  its  life.  For  every 
grain  of  wit  there  is  a  grain  of  folly.  For  every  thing 
you  have  missed,  you  have  gained  something  else  ; 
and  for  every  thing  you  gain,  you  lose  something.  If 
riches  increase,  they  are  increased  that  use  them.  If 
the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,  nature  takes  out  of  the 
man  what  she  puts  into  his  chest ;  swells  the  estate, 
but  kills  the  owner.  Nature  hates  monopolies  and  ex 
ceptions.  The  waves  of  the  sea  do  not  more  speedily 
seek  a  level  from  their  loftiest  tossing,  than  the  vari 
eties  of  condition  tend  to  equalize  themselves.  There  is 
always  some  levelling  circumstance  that  puts  down  the 
4* 


82  ESSAY  III. 

overbearing,  the  strong,  the  rich,  the  fortunate,  sub 
stantially  on  the  same  ground  with  all  others.  Is  a 
man  too  strong  and  fierce  for  society,  and  by  temper 
and  position  a  bad  citizen,  —  a  morose  ruffian  with  a 
dash  of  the  pirate  in  him  ;  —  nature  sends  him  a 
troop  of  pretty  sons  and  daughters  who  are  getting 
along  in  the  dame's  classes  at  the  village  school,  and 
love  and  fear  for  them  smooths  his  grim  scowl  to  cour 
tesy.  Thus  she  contrives  to  intenerate  the  granite 
and  felspar,  takes  the  boar  out  and  puts  the  lamb  in, 
and  keeps  her  balance  true. 

The  farmer  imagines  power  and  place  are  fine 
things.  But  the  President  has  paid  dear  for  his  White 
House.  It  has  commonly  cost  him  all  his  peace  and 
the  best  of  his  manly  attributes.  To  preserve  for  a 
short  time  so  conspicuous  an  appearance  before  the 
world,  he  is  content  to  eat  dust  before  the  real  mas 
ters  who  stand  erect  behind  the  throne.  Or,  do  men 
desire  the  more  substantial  and  permanent  grandeur  of 
genius  ?  Neither  has  this  an  immunity.  He  who  by 
force  of  will  or  of  thought  is  great,  and  overlooks 
thousands,  has  the  responsibility  of  overlooking. 
With  every  influx  of  light,  comes  new  danger. 
Has  he  light  ?  he  must  bear  witness  to  the  light, 
and  always  outrun  that  sympathy  which  gives  him 
such  keen  satisfaction,  by  his  fidelity  to  new  revela 
tions  of  the  incessant  soul.  He  must  hate  father 
and  mother,  wife  and  child.  Has  he  all  that  the 
world  loves  and  admires  and  covets  ?  —  he  must 
cast  behind  him  their  admiration,  and  afflict  them  by 
faithfulness  to  his  truth,  and  become  a  by- word  and 
a  hissing. 


COMPENSATION.  83 

This  Law  writes  the  laws  of  cities  and  nations.  It 
will  not  be  baulked  of  its  end  in  the  smallest  iota.  It 
is  in  vain  to  build  or  plot  or  combine  against  it. 
Things  refuse  to  be  mismanaged  long.  Res  nolunt 
diu  male  administrari.  Though  no  checks  to  a  new 
evil  appear,  the  checks  exist  and  will  appear.  If  the 
government  is  cruel,  the  governor's  life  is  not  safe. 
If  you  tax  too  high,  the  revenue  will  yield  nothing. 
If  you  make  the  criminal  code  sanguinary,  juries  will 
not  convict.  Nothing  arbitrary,  nothing  artificial  can 
endure.  The  true  life  and  satisfactions  of  man  seem 
to  elude  the  utmost  rigors  or  felicities  of  condition,  and 
to  establish  themselves  with  great  indifferency  under 
all  varieties  of  circumstance.  Under  all  governments 
the  influence  of  character  remains  the  same,  —  in 
Turkey  and  in  New  England  about  alike.  Under 
the  primeval  despots  of  Egypt,  history  honestly  con 
fesses  that  man  must  have  been  as  free  as  culture 
could  make  him. 

These  appearances  indicate  the  fact  that  the  uni 
verse  is  represented  in  every  one  of  its  particles. 
Every  thing  in  nature  contains  all  the  powers  of  na 
ture.  Every  thing  is  made  of  one  hidden  stuff ;  as  the 
naturalist  sees  one  type  under  every  metamorphosis, 
and  regards  a  horse  as  a  running  man,  a  fish  as  a 
swimming  man,  a  bird  as  a  flying  man,  a  tree  as  a 
rooted  man.  Each  new  form  repeats  not  only  the 
main  character  of  the  type,  but  part  for  part  all  the 
details,  all  the  aims,  furtherances,  hindrances,  ener 
gies,  and  whole  system  of  every  other.  Every  occu 
pation,  trade,  art,  transaction,  is  a  compend  of  the 


84  ESSAY    III. 

world,  and  a  correlative  of  every  other.  Each  one  is 
an  entire  emblem  of  human  life  ;  of  its  good  and  ill, 
its  trials,  its  enemies,  its  course  and  its  end.  And 
each  one  must  somehow  accommodate  the  whole  man, 
and  recite  all  his  destiny. 

The  world  globes  itself  in  a  drop  of  dew.  The  mi 
croscope  cannot  find  the  animalcule  which  is  less  per 
fect  for  being  little.  Eyes,  ears,  taste,  smell,  motion, 
resistance,  appetite,  and  organs  of  reproduction  that 
take  hold  on  eternity,  —  all  find  room  to  consist  in  the 
small  creature.  So  do  we  put  our  life  into  every  act. 
The  true  doctrine  of  omnipresence  is,  that  God  re 
appears  with  all  his  parts  in  every  moss  and  cobweb. 
The  value  of  the  universe  contrives  to  throw  itself 
into  every  point.  If  the  good  is  there,  so  is  the  evil ; 
if  the  affinity,  so  the  repulsion ;  if  the  force,  so  the 
limitation. 

Thus  is  the  universe  alive.  All  things  are  moral. 
That  soul  which  within  us  is  a  sentiment,  outside  of 
us  is  a  law.  We  feel  its  inspirations ;  out  there  in 
history  we  can  see  its  fatal  strength.  It  is  almighty. 
All  nature  feels  its  grasp.  "  It  is  in  the  world  and  the 
world  was  made  by  it."  It  is  eternal,  but  it  enacts 
itself  in  time  and  space.  Justice  is  not  postponed. 
A  perfect  equity  adjusts  its  balance  in  all  parts  of  life. 
Ol  xuftoi  4ios  <iet  etntmocri.  The  dice  of  God  are  al 
ways  loaded.  The  world  looks  like  a  multiplication- 
table  or  a  mathematical  equation,  which,  turn  it  how 
you  will,  balances  itself.  Take  what  figure  you  will, 
its  exact  value,  nor  more  nor  less,  still  returns  to  you. 
Every  secret  is  told,  every  crime  is  punished,  every 


COMPENSATION.  85 

virtue  rewarded,  every  wrong  redressed,  in  silence 
and  certainty.  What  we  call  retribution,  is  the  univer 
sal  necessity  by  which  the  whole  appears  wherever  a 
part  appears.  If  you  see  smoke,  there  must  be  fire. 
If  you  see  a  hand  or  a  limb,  you  know  that  the  trunk 
to  which  it  belongs,  is  there  behind. 

Every  act  rewards  itself,  or,  in  other  words,  inte 
grates  itself,  in  a  twofold  manner ;  first,  in  the  thing,  or, 
in  real  nature  ;  and  secondly,  in  the  circumstance,  or, 
in  apparent  nature.  Men  call  the  circumstance  the  re 
tribution.  The  causal  retribution  is  in  the  thing,  and  is 
seen  by  the  soul.  The  retribution  in  the  circumstance, 
is  seen  by  the  understanding ;  it  is  inseparable  from 
the  thing,  but  is  often  spread  over  a  long  time,  and  so 
does  not  become  distinct  until  after  many  years.  The 
specific  stripes  may  follow  late  after  the  offence,  but 
they  follow  because  they  accompany  it.  Crime  and 
punishment  grow  out  of  one  stem.  Punishment  is  a 
fruit  that  unsuspected  ripens  within  the  flower  of  the 
pleasure  which  concealed  it.  Cause  and  effect,  means 
and  ends,  seed  and  fruit,  cannot  be  severed  ;  for  the 
effect  already  blooms  in  the  cause,  the  end  preexists 
in  the  means,  the  fruit  in  the  seed. 

Whilst  thus  the  world  will  be  whole,  and  refuses  to 
be  disparted,  we  seek  to  act  partially ;  to  sunder ;  to 
appropriate  ;  for  example,  —  to  gratify  the  senses,  we. 
sever  the  pleasure  of  the  senses  from  the  needs  of  the 
character.  The  ingenuity  of  man  has  been  dedicated 
always  to  the  solution  of  one  problem,  —  how  to  detach 
the  sensual  sweet,  the  sensual  strong,  the  sensual 
bright,  &c.  from  the  moral  sweet,  the  moral  deep,  the 


86  ESSAY   III. 

moral  fair  ;  that  is,  again,  to  contrive  to  cut  clean  off 
this  upper  surface  so  thin  as  to  leave  it  bottomless  ; 
to  get  a  one  end,  without  an  other  end.  The  soul 
says,  Eat ;  the  body  would  feast.  The  soul  says,  The 
man  and  woman  shall  be  one  flesh  and  one  soul ;  the 
body  would  join  the  flesh  only.  The  soul  says,  Have 
dominion  over  all  things  to  the  ends  of  virtue ;  the 
body  would  have  the  power  over  things  to  its  own 
ends. 

The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work  through 
all  things.  It  would  be  the  only  fact.  All  things 
shall  be  added  unto  it,  —  power,  pleasure,  knowledge, 
beauty.  The  particular  man  aims  to  be  somebody  ; 
to  set  up  for  himself;  to  truck  and  higgle  for  a  pri 
vate  good  ;  and,  in  particulars,  to  ride,  that  he  may 
ride  ;  to  dress,  that  he  may  be  dressed  ;  to  eat,  that  he 
may  eat ;  and  to  govern  that  he  may  be  seen.  Men 
seek  to  be  great ;  they  would  have  offices,  wealth, 
power  and  fame.  They  think  that  to  be  great  is  to 
get  only  one  side  of  nature  —  the  sweet,  without  the 
other  side  —  the  bitter. 

Steadily  is  this  dividing  and  detaching  counteracted. 
Up  to  this  day,  it  must  be  owned,  no  projector  has 
had  the  smallest  success.  The  parted  water  re-unites 
behind  our  hand.  Pleasure  is  taken  out  of  pleasant 
things,  profit  out  of  profitable  things,  power  out  of 
strong  things,  the  moment  we  seek  to  separate  them 
from  the  whole.  We  can  no  more  halve  things  and 
get  the  sensual  good,  by  itself,  than  we  can  get  an  in 
side  that  shall  have  no  outside,  or  a  light  without  a 
shadow.  "  Drive  out  nature  with  a  fork,  she  comes 
running  back." 


COMPENSATION.  87 

Life  invests  itself  with  inevitable  conditions,  which 
the  unwise  seek  to  dodge,  which  one  and  another 
brags  that  he  does  not  know ;  brags  that  they  do  not 
touch  him  ;  —  but  the  brag  is  on  his  lips,  the  conditions 
are  in  his  soul.  If  he  escapes  them  in  one  part,  they 
attack  him  in  another  more  vital  part.  If  he  has  es 
caped  them  in  form,  and  in  the  appearance,  it  is  that 
he  has  resisted  his  life,  and  fled  from  himself,  and  the 
retribution  is  so  much  death.  So  signal  is  the  failure 
of  all  attempts  to  make  this  separation  of  the  good 
from  the  tax,  that  the  experiment  would  not  be  tried, — 
since  to  try  it  is  to  be  mad,  —  but  for  the  circum 
stance,  that  when  the  disease  began  in  the  will,  of  re 
bellion  and  separation,  the  intellect  is  at  once  infected, 
so  that  the  man  ceases  to  see  God  whole  in  each  ob 
ject,  but  is  able  to  see  the  sensual  allurement  of  an 
object,  and  not  see  the  sensual  hurt ;  he  sees  the  mer 
maid's  head,  but  not  the  dragon's  tail ;  and  thinks  he 
can  cut  off  that  which  he  would  have,  from  that  which 
he  would  not  have.  "  How  secret  art  thou  who 
dwellest  in  the  highest  heavens  in  silence,  O  thou 
only  great  God,  sprinkling  with  an  unwearied  Provi 
dence  certain  penal  blindnesses  upon  such  as  have 
unbridled  desires  !"* 

The  human  soul  is  true  to  these  facts  in  the  paint 
ing  of  fable,  of  history,  of  law,  of  proverbs,  of  con 
versation.  It  finds  a  tongue  in  literature  unawares. 
Thus  the  Greeks  called  Jupiter,  Supreme  Mind  ;  but 
having  traditionally  ascribed  to  him  many  base  actionst 

*  St.  Augustine  :  Confessions,  B.  I. 


88  ESSAY    III. 

they  involuntarily  made  amends  to  Reason,  by  tying 
up  the  hands  of  so  bad  a  god.  He  is  made  as  help 
less  as  a  king  of  England.  Prometheus  knows  one  se 
cret,  which  Jove  must  bargain  for  ;  Minerva,  another. 
He  cannot  get  his  own  thunders ;  Minerva  keeps  the 
key  of  them. 

"  Of  all  the  gods  I  only  know  the  keys 
That  ope  the  solid  doors  within  whose  vaults 
His  thunders  sleep." 

A  plain  confession  of  the  in-working  of  the  All, 
and  of  its  moral  aim.  The  Indian  mythology  ends 
in  the  same  ethics ;  and  indeed  it  would  seem  impos 
sible  for  any  fable  to  be  invented  and  get  any  currency 
which  was  not  moral.  Aurora  forgot  to  ask  youth 
for  her  lover,  and  so  though  Tithonus  is  immortal, 
he  is  old.  Achilles  is  not  quite  invulnerable  ;  for 
Thetis  held  him  by  the  heel  when  she  dipped  him  in 
the  Styx,  and  the  sacred  waters  did  not  wash  that 
part.  Siegfried,  in  the  Nibelungen,  is  not  quite  im 
mortal,  for  a  leaf  fell  on  his  back  whilst  he  was  bath 
ing  in  the  Dragon's  blood,  and  that  spot  which  it  cov 
ered  is  mortal.  And  so  it  always  is.  There  is  a 
crack  in  every  thing  God  has  made.  Always,  it  would 
seem,  there  is  this  vindictive  circumstance  stealing  in 
at  unawares,  even  into  the  wild  poesy  in  which  the 
human  fancy  attempted  to  make  bold  holiday,  and  to 
shake  itself  free  of  the  old  laws,  —  this  back-stroke, 
this  kick  of  the  gun,  certifying  that  the  law  is  fatal  ; 
that  in  Nature,  nothing  can  be  given,  all  things  are 
sold. 


COMPENSATION.  89 

This  is  that  ancient  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  who  keeps 
watch  in  the  Universe,  and  lets  no  offence  go  un- 
chastised.  The  Furies,  they  said,  are  attendants  on 
Justice,  and  if  the  sun  in  heaven  should  transgress  his 
path,  they  would  punish  him.  The  poets  related  that 
stone  walls,  and  iron  swords,  and  leathern  thongs  had 
an  occult  sympathy  with  the  wrongs  of  their  owners ; 
that  the  belt  which  Ajax  gave  Hector,  dragged  the 
Trojan  hero  over  the  field  at  the  wheels  of  the  car 
of  Achilles  ;  and  the  sword  which  Hector  gave  Ajax, 
was  that  on  whose  point  Ajax  fell.  They  recorded 
that  when  the  Thasians  erected  a  statue  to  Theogenes, 
a  victor  in  the  games,  one  of  his  rivals  went  to  it  by 
night,  and  endeavored  to  throw  it  down  by  repeated 
blows,  until  at  last  he  moved  it  from  its  pedestal  and 
was  crushed  to  death  beneath  its  fall. 

This  voice  of  fable  has  in  it  somewhat  divine.  It 
came  from  thought  above  the  will  of  the  writer. 
That  is  the  best  part  of  each  writer,  which  has  nothing 
private  in  it.  That  is  the  best  part  of  each,  which  he 
does  not  know,  that  which  flowed  out  of  his  constitu 
tion,  and  not  from  his  too  active  invention  ;  that  which 
in  the  study  of  a  single  artist  you  might  not  easily 
find,  but  in  the  study  of  many,  you  would  abstract 
as  the  spirit  of  them  all.  Phidias  it  is  not,  but  the 
work  of  man  in  that  early  Hellenic  world,  that  1  would 
know.  The  name  and  circumstance  of  Phidias,  how 
ever  convenient  for  history,  embarrasses  when  we 
come  to  the  highest  criticism.  We  are  to  see  that 
which  man  was  tending  to  do  in  a  given  period,  and 
was  hindered,  or,  if  you  will,  modified  in  doing,  by 


90  ESSAY   III. 

the  interfering  volitions  of  Phidias,  of  Dante,  of 
Shakspeare,  the  organ  whereby  man  at  the  moment 
wrought. 

Still  more  striking  is  the  expression  of  this  fact  in 
the  proverbs  of  all  nations,  which  are  always  the  lite 
rature  of  Reason,  or  the  statements  of  an  abso 
lute  truth,  without  qualification.  Proverbs,  like  the 
sacred  books  of  each  nation,  are  the  sanctuary  of  the 
Intuitions.  That  which  the  droning  world,  chained 
to  appearances,  will  not  allow  the  realist  to  say  in  his 
own  words,  it  will  suffer  him  to  say  in  proverbs  with 
out  contradiction.  And  this  law  of  laws  which  the 
pulpit,  the  senate  and  the  college  deny,  is  hourly 
preached  in  all  markets  and  all  languages  by  flights 
of  proverbs,  whose  teaching  is  as  true  and  as  omni 
present  as  that  of  birds  and  flies. 

All  things  are  double,  one  against  another.  —  Tit  for 
tat ;  an  eye  for  an  eye  ;  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ;  blood  for 
blood  ;  measure  for  measure  ;  love  for  love.  —  Give 
and  it  shall  be  given  you.  —  He  that  watereth  shall  be 
watered  himself.  —  What  will  you  have  ?  quoth  God  ; 
pay  for  it  and  take  it.  —  Nothing  venture,  nothing 
have.  —  Thou  shalt  be  paid  exactly  for  what  thou  hast 
done,  no  more,  no  less.  —  Who  doth  not  work  shall  not 
eat.  —  Harm  watch,  harm  catch.  — Curses  always  re 
coil  on  the  head  of  him  who  imprecates  them.  —  If  you 
put  a  chain  around  the  neck  of  a  slave,  the  other  end 
fastens  itself  around  your  own.  —  Bad  counsel  con 
founds  the  adviser.  —  The  devil  is  an  ass. 

It  is  thus  written,  because  it  is  thus  in  life.  Our  ac 
tion  is  overmastered  and  characterised  above  our  will 


COMPENSATION.  91 

by  the  law  of  nature.  We  aim  at  a  petty  end  quite 
aside  from  the  public  good,  but  our  act  arranges  itself 
by  irresistible  magnetism  in  a  line  with  the  poles  of 
the  world. 

A  man  cannot  speak  but  he  judges  himself.  With 
his  will,  or  against  his  will,  he  draws  his  portrait 
to  the  eye  of  his  companions  by  every  word.  Every 
opinion  reacts  on  him  who  utters  it.  It  is  a  thread- 
ball  thrown  at  a  mark,  but  the  other  end  remains  in 
the  thrower's  bag.  Or,  rather,  it  is  a  harpoon  thrown 
at  the  whale,  unwinding,  as  it  flies,  a  coil  of  cord  in 
the  boat,  and  if  the  harpoon  is  not  good,  or  not  well 
thrown,  it  will  go  nigh  to  cut  the  steersman  in  twain, 
or  to  sink  the  boat. 

You  cannot  do  wrong  without  suffering  wrong. 
"  No  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that  was  not  in 
jurious  to  him,"  said  Burke.  The  exclusive  in  fash 
ionable  life  does  not  see  that  he  excludes  himself  from 
enjoyment,  in  the  attempt  to  appropriate  it.  The  ex- 
clusionist  in  religion  does  not  see  that  he  shuts  the 
door  of  heaven  on  himself,  in  striving  to  shut  out 
others.  Treat  men  as  pawns  and  ninepins,  and  you 
shall  suffer  as  well  as  they.  If  you  leave  out  their 
heart,  you  shall  lose  your  own.  The  senses  would 
make  things  of  all  persons  ;  of  women,  of  children, 
of  the  poor.  The  vulgar  proverb,  "  I  will  get  it  from 
his  purse  or  get  it  from  his  skin, "  is  sound  philosophy. 

All  infractions  of  love  and  equity  in  our  social  rela 
tions  are  speedily  punished.  They  are  punished  by 
Fear.  Whilst  I  stand  in  simple  relations  to  my  fel 
low  man,  I  have  no  displeasure  in  meeting  him.  We 


92  ESSAY  III. 

meet  as  water  meets  water,  or  a  current  of  air  meets 
another,  with  perfect  diffusion  and  interpenetration  of 
nature.  But  as  soon  as  there  is  any  departure  from 
simplicity,  and  attempt  at  halfness,  or  good  for  me 
that  is  not  good  for  him,  my  neighbor  feels  the 
wrong  ;  he  shrinks  from  me  as  far  as  I  have  shrunk 
from  him ;  his  eyes  no  longer  seek  mine  ;  there  is 
war  between  us ;  there  is  hate  in  him  and  fear  in 
me. 

All  the  old  abuses  in  society,  the  great  and  univer 
sal  and  the  petty  and  particular,  all  unjust  accumula 
tions  of  property  and  power,  are  avenged  in  the  same 
manner.  Fear  is  an  instructer  of  great  sagacity,  and 
the  herald  of  all  revolutions.  One  thing  he  always 
teaches,  that  there  is  rottenness  where  he  appears.  He 
is  a  carrion  crow,  and  though  you  see  riot  well  what 
he  hovers  for,  there  is  death  somewhere.  Our 
property  is  timid,  our  laws  are  timid,  our  cultivated 
classes  are  timid.  Fear  for  ages  has  boded  and 
mowed  and  gibbered  over  government  and  property. 
That  obscene  bird  is  not  there  for  nothing.  He  indi 
cates  great  wrongs  which  must  be  revised. 

Of  the  like  nature  is  that  expectation  of  change 
which  instantly  follows  the  suspension  of  our  volun 
tary  activity.  The  terror  of  cloudless  noon,  the  eme 
rald  of  Polycrates,  the  awe  of  prosperity,  the  in* 
stinct  which  leads  every  generous  soul  to  impose  on 
itself  tasks  of  a  noble  asceticism  and  vicarious  vir 
tue,  are  the  tremblings  of  the  balance  of  justice 
through  the  heart  and  mind  of  man. 

Experienced  men  of   the  world  know  very   well 


COMPENSATION.  93 

that  it  is  always  best  to  pay  scot  and  lot  as  they  go 
along,  and  that  a  man  often  pays  dear  for  a  small 
frugality.  The  borrower  runs  in  his  own  debt.  Has 
a  man  gained  any  thing  who  has  received  a  hun 
dred  favors  and  rendered  none  ?  Has  he  gained 
by  borrowing,  through  indolence  or  cunning,  his 
neighbor's  wares,  or  horses,  or  money  ?  There  arises 
on  the  deed  the  instant  acknowledgment  of  benefit  on 
the  one  part,  and  of  debt  on  the  other ;  that  is,  of  su 
periority  and  inferiority.  The  transaction  remains  in 
the  memory  of  himself  and  his  neighbor  ;  and  every 
new  transaction  alters,  according  to  its  nature,  their 
relation  to  each  other.  He  may  soon  come  to  see 
that  he  had  better  have  broken  his  own  bones  than  to 
have  ridden  in  his  neighbor's  coach,  and  that  4t  the 
highest  price  he  can  pay  for  a  thing  is  to  ask  for  it." 

A  wise  man  will  extend  this  lesson  to  all  parts  of 
life,  and  know  that  it  is  always  the  part  of  prudence 
to  face  every  claimant,  and  pay  every  just  demand  on 
your  time,  your  talents,  or  your  heart.  Always  pay  ; 
for,  first  or  last,  you  must  pay  your  entire  debt.  Per 
sons  and  events  may  stand  for  a  time  between  you 
and  justice,  but  it  is  only  a  postponement.  You  must 
pay  at  last  your  own  debt.  If  you  are  wise,  you  will 
dread  a  prosperity  which  only  loads  you  with  more. 
Benefit  is  the  end  of  nature.  But  for  every  benefit 
which  you  receive,  a  tax  is  levied.  He  is  great  who 
confers  the  most  benefits.  He  is  base,  —  and  that  is 
the  one  base  thing  in  the  universe,  —  to  receive  fa 
vors  and  render  none.  In  the  order  of  nature  we  can 
not  render  benefits  to  those  from  whom  we  receive 


94  ESSAY    III. 

them,  or  only  seldom.  But  the  benefit  we  receive 
must  be  rendered  again,  line  for  line,  deed  for  deed, 
cent  for  cent,  to  somebody.  Beware  of  too  much 
good  staying  in  your  hand.  It  will  fast  corrupt  and 
worm  worms.  Pay  it  away  quickly  in  some  sort. 

Labor  is  watched  over  by  the  same  pitiless  laws. 
Cheapest,  say  the  prudent,  is  the  dearest  labor.  What 
we  buy  in  a  broom,  a  mat,  a  wagon,  a  knife,  is  some 
application  of  good  sense  to  a  common  want.  It 
is  best  to  pay  in  your  land  a  skilful  gardener,  or 
to  buy  good  sense  applied  to  gardening ;  in  your 
sailor,  good  sense  applied  to  navigation  ;  in  the  house, 
good  sense  applied  to  cooking,  sewing,  serving  ;  in 
your  agent,  good  sense  applied  to  accounts  and  af 
fairs.  So  do  you  multiply  your  presence,  or  spread 
yourself  throughout  your  estate.  But  because  of  the 
dual  constitution  of  all  things,  in  labor  as  in  life  there 
can  be  no  cheating.  The  thief  steals  from  himself. 
The  swindler  swindles  himself.  For  the  real  price  of 
labor  is  knowledge  and  virtue,  whereof  wealth  and 
credit  are  signs.  These  signs,  like  paper  money,  may 
be  counterfeited  or  stolen,  but  that  which  they  repre 
sent,  namely,  knowledge  and  virtue,  cannot  be  coun 
terfeited  or  stolen.  These  ends  of  labor  cannot  be 
answered  but  by  real  exertions  of  the  mind,  and 
in  obedience  to  pure  motives.  The  cheat,  the  de 
faulter,  the  gambler  cannot  extort  the  benefit,  cannot 
extort  the  knowledge  of  material  and  moral  nature 
which  his  honest  care  and  pains  yield  to  the  operative. 
The  law  of  nature  is,  Do  the  thing,  and  you  shall 
have  the  power  ;  but  they  who  do  not  the  thing  have, 
not  the  power. 


COMPENSATION.  95 

Human  labor,  through  all  its  forms,  from  the  sharp 
ening  of  a  stake  to  the  construction  of  a  city  or  an 
epic,  is  one  immense  illustration  of  the  perfect  com 
pensation  of  the  universe.  Every  where  and  always 
this  law  is  sublime.  The  absolute  balance  of  Give 
and  Take,  the  doctrine  that  every  thing  has  its  price  ; 
and  if  that  price  is  not  paid,  not  that  thing  but 
something  else  is  obtained,  and  that  it  is  impossible 
to  get  any  thing  without  its  price,  —  this  doctrine  is  not 
less  sublime  in  the  columns  of  a  leger  than  in  the 
budgets  of  states,  in  the  laws  of  light  and  darkness, 
in  all  the  action  and  reaction  of  nature.  I  cannot 
doubt  that  the  high  laws  which  each  man  sees  ever 
implicated  in  those  processes  with  which  he  is  conver 
sant,  the  stern  ethics  which  sparkle  on  his  chisel- 
edge,  which  are  measured  out  by  his  plumb  and  foot- 
rule,  which  stand  as  manifest  in  the  footing  of  the 
shop-bill  as  in  the  history  of  a  state, —  do  recommend 
to  him  his  trade,  and  though  seldom  named,  exalt  his 
business  to  his  imagination. 

The  league  between  virtue  and  nature  engages  all 
things  to  assume  a  hostile  front  to  vice.  The  beauti 
ful  laws  and  substances  of  the  world  persecute  and 
whip  the  traitor.  He  finds  that  things  are  arranged 
for  truth  and  benefit,  but  there  is  no  den  in  the  wide 
world  to  hide  a  rogue.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
concealment.  Commit  a  crime,  and  the  earth  is  made 
of  glass.  Commit  a  crime,  and  it  seems  as  if  a  coat 
of  snow  fell  on  the  ground,  such  as  reveals  in  the 
woods  the  track  of  every  partridge  and  fox  and  squir 
rel  and  mole.  You  cannot  recall  the  spoken  word. 


96  ESSAY   III. 

you  cannot  wipe  out  the  foot-track,  you  cannot  draw 
up  the  ladder,  so  as  to  leave  no  inlet  or  clew.  Al 
ways  some  damning  circumstance  transpires.  The 
laws  and  substances  of  nature,  water,  snow,  wind, 
gravitation,  become  penalties  to  the  thief. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  law  holds  with  equal  sure- 
ness  for  all  right  action.  Love,  and  you  shall  be 
loved.  All  love  is  mathematically  just,  as  much  as 
the  two  sides  of  an  algebraic  equation.  The  good 
man  has  absolute  good,  which  like  fire  turns  every 
thing  to  its  own  nature,  so  that  you  cannot  do  him  any 
harm  ;  but  as  the  royal  armies  sent  against  Napo 
leon,  when  he  approached,  cast  down  their  colors 
and  from  enemies  became  friends,  so  do  disasters  of 
all  kinds,  as  sickness,  offence,  poverty,  prove  bene 
factors. 

"  Winds  blow  and  waters  roll 
Strength  to  the  brave,  and  power  and  deity, 
Yet  in  themselves  are  nothing." 

The  good  are  befriended  even  by  weakness  and  de 
fect.  As  no  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that  was 
not  injurious  to  him,  so  no  man  had  ever  a  defect  that 
was  not  somewhere  made  useful  to  him.  The  stag  in 
the  fable  admired  his  horns  and  blamed  his  feet,  but 
when  the  hunter  came,  his  feet  saved  him,  and  after 
wards,  caught  in  the  thicket,  his  horns  destroyed 
him.  Every  man  in  his  lifetime  needs  to  thank  his 
faults.  As  no  man  thoroughly  understands  a  truth 
until  first  he  has  contended  against  it,  so  no  man  has 
a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  hindrances  or  tal 
ents  of  men,  until  he  has  suffered  from  the  one,  and 


COMPENSATION.  97 

seen  the  triumph  of  the  other  over  his  own  want  of 
the  same.  Has  he  a  defect  of  temper  that  unfits  him 
to  live  in  society  ?  Thereby  he  is  driven  to  enter 
tain  himself  alone,  and  acquire  habits  of  self-help  ; 
and  thus,  like"  the  wounded  oyster,  he  mends  his 
shell  with  pearl. 

Our  strength  grows  out  of  our  weakness.  Not  un 
til  we  are  pricked  and  stung  and  sorely  shot  at, 
awakens  the  indignation  which  arms  itself  with  secret 
forces.  A  great  man  is  always  willing  to  be  little. 
Whilst  he  sits  on  the  cushion  of  advantages,  he  goes  to 
sleep.  When  he  is  pushed,  tormented,  defeated,  he 
has  a  chance  to  learn  something ;  he  has  been  put  on 
his  wits,  on  his  manhood  ;  he  has  gained  facts  ;  learns 
his  ignorance  ;  is  cured  of  the  insanity  of  conceit ; 
has  got  moderation  and  real  skill.  The  wise  man 
always  throws  himself  on  the  side  of  his  assailants. 
It  is  more  his  interest  than  it  is  theirs  to  find  his  weak 
point.  The  wound  cicatrizes  and  falls  off  from  him, 
like  a  dead  skin,  and  when  they  would  triumph,  lo  ! 
he  has  passed  on  invulnerable.  Blame  is  safer  than 
praise.  I  hate  to  be  defended  in  a  newspaper.  As 
long  as  all  that  is  said,  is  said  against  me,  I  feel  a  cer 
tain  assurance  of  success.  But  as  soon  as  honied 
words  of  praise  are  spoken  for  me,  I  feel  as  one 
that  lies  unprotected  before  his  enemies.  In  general, 
every  evil  to  which  we  do  not  succumb,  is  a  benefac 
tor.  As  the  Sandwich  Islander  believes  that  the 
strength  and  valor  of  the  enemy  he  kills,  passes  into 
himself,  so  we  gain  the  strength  of  the  temptation  we 
resist. 

5 


98  ESSAY    III. 

The  same  guards  which  protect  us  from  disaster, 
defect,  and  enmity,  defend  us,  if  we  will,  from  sel 
fishness  and  fraud.  Bolts  and  bars  are  not  the  best 
of  our  institutions,  nor  is  shrewdness  in  trade  a  mark 
of  wisdom.  Men  suffer  all  their  life  long,  under  the 
foolish  superstition  that  they  can  be  cheated.  But  it 
is  as  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  cheated  by  any  one 
but  himself,  as  for  a  thing  to  be,  and  not  to  be,  at  the 
same  time.  There  is  a  third  silent  party  to  all  our 
bargains.  The  nature  and  soul  of  things  takes  on 
itself  the  guaranty  of  the  fulfilment  of  every  contract, 
so  that  honest  service  cannot  come  to  loss.  If  you 
serve  an  ungrateful  master,  serve  him  the  more. 
Put  God  in  your  debt.  Every  stroke  shall  be  repaid. 
The  longer  the  payment  is  withholden,  the  better  for 
you ;  for  compound  interest  on  compound  interest  is 
the  rate  and  usage  of  this  exchequer. 

The  history  of  persecution  is  a  history  of  endea 
vors  to  cheat  nature,  to  make  water  run  up  hill,  to 
twist  a  rope  of  sand.  It  makes  no  difference  whe 
ther  the  actors  be  many  or  one,  a  tyrant  or  a  mob. 
A  mob  is  a  society  of  bodies  voluntarily  bereaving 
themselves  of  reason  and  traversing  its  work.  The 
mob  is  man  voluntarily  descending  to  the  nature  of 
the  beast.  Its  fit  hour  of  activity  is  night.  Its  ac 
tions  are  insane  like  its  whole  constitution.  It  perse 
cutes  a  principle  ;  it  would  whip  a  right ;  it  would 
tar  and  feather  justice,  by  inflicting  fire  and  outrage 
upon  the  houses  and  persons  of  those  who  have  these. 
It  resembles  the  prank  of  boys  who  run  with  fire-en 
gines  to  put  out  the  ruddy  aurora  streaming  to  the 


COMPENSATION.  99 

stars.  The  inviolate  spirit  turns  their  spite  against 
the  wrong  doers.  The  martyr  cannot  be  dishonored. 
Every  lash  inflicted  is  a  tongue  of  fame  ;  every  pri 
son  a  more  illustrious  abode  ;  every  burned  book  or 
house  enlightens  the  world  ;  every  suppressed  or  ex 
punged  word  reverberates  through  the  earth  from 
side  to  side.  The  minds  of  men  are  at  last  aroused  ; 
reason  looks  out  and  justifies  her  own,  and  malice 
finds  all  her  work  vain.  It  is  the  whipper  who  is 
whipped,  and  the  tyrant  who  is  undone. 

Thus  do  all  things  preach  the  indifFerency  of  cir 
cumstances.  The  man  is  all.  Every  thing  has  two 
sides,  a  good  and  an  evil.  Every  advantage  has  its 
tax.  I  learn  to  be  content.  But  the  doctrine  of  com 
pensation  is  not  the  doctrine  of  indifFerency.  The 
thoughtless  say,  on  hearing  these  representations, — 
What  boots  it  to  do  well  ?  there  is  one  event  to  good 
and  evil ;  if  I  gain  any  good,  I  must  pay  for  it ;  if  I 
lose  any  good,  I  gain  some  other ;  all  actions  are  in 
different. 

There  is  a  deeper  fact  in  the  soul  than  compensa 
tion,  to  wit,  its  own  nature.  The  soul  is  not  a  com 
pensation,  but  a  life.  The  soul  is.  Under  all  this 
running  sea  of  circumstance,  whose  waters  ebb  and 
flow  with  perfect  balance,  lies  the  aboriginal  abyss  of 
real  Being.  Existence,  or  God,  is  not  a  relation,  or 
a  part,  but  the  whole.  Being  is  the  vast  affirmative, 
excluding  negation,  self-balanced,  and  swallowing  up 
all  relations,  parts  and  times,  within  itself.  Nature, 
truth,  virtue  are  the  influx  from  thence.  Vice  is  the 


100  ESSAY    III. 

absence  or  departure  of  the  same.  Nothing,  False 
hood,  may  indeed  stand  as  the  great  Night  or  shade, 
on  which,  as  a  back-ground,  the  living  universe  paints 
itself  forth  ;  but  no  fact  is  begotten  by  it ;  it  cannot 
work  ;  for  it  is  not.  It  cannot  work  any  good  ;  it 
cannot  work  any  harm.  It  is  harm  inasmuch  as  it  is 
worse  not  to  be  than  to  be. 

We  feel  defrauded  of  the  retribution  due  to  evil 
acts,  because  the  criminal  adheres  to  his  vice  and  con 
tumacy,  and  does  not  come  to  a  crisis  or  judgment 
any  where  in  visible  nature.  There  is  no  stunning 
confutation  of  his  nonsense  before  men  and  angels. 
Has  he  therefore  outwitted  the  law  ?  Inasmuch  as  he 
carries  the  malignity  and  the  lie  with  him,  he  so  far 
deceases  from  nature.  In  some  manner  there  will  be 
a  demonstration  of  the  wrong  to  the  understanding 
also  ;  but  should  we  not  see  it,  this  deadly  deduc 
tion  makes  square  the  eternal  account. 

Neither  can  it  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
gain  of  rectitude  must  be  bought  by  any  loss.  There 
is  no  penalty  to  virtue  ;  no  penalty  to  wisdom  ;  they 
are  proper  additions  of  being.  In  a  virtuous  action, 
I  properly  am ;  in  a  virtuous  act,  I  add  to  the  world  ; 
I  plant  into  deserts  conquered  from  Chaos  and  No 
thing,  and  see  the  darkness  receding  on  the  limits  of  the 
horizon.  There  can  be  no  excess  to  love ;  none  lo 
knowledge  ;  none  to  beauty,  when  these  attributes 
are  considered  in  the  purest  sense.  The  soul  refuses 
all  limits.  It  affirms  in  man  always  an  Optimism, 
never  a  Pessimism. 

His  life  is  a  progress,  and  not  a  station.  His  instinct 


COMPENSATION.  101 

is  trust.  Our  instinct  uses  "  more  "  and  "  less  "  in  ap 
plication  to  man,  always  of  the  presence  of  the  sowZ, 
and  not  of  its  absence  ;  the  brave  man  is  greater  than 
the  coward  ;  the  true,  the  benevolent,  the  wise,  is  more 
a  man  and  not  less,  than  the  fool  and  knave.  There 
is,  therefore,  no  tax  on  the  good  of  virtue  ;  for, 
that  is  the  incoming  of  God  himself,  or  absolute 
existence,  without  any  comparative.  All  external 
good  has  its  tax,  and  if  it  came  without  desert  or 
sweat,  has  no  root  in  me  and  the  next  wind  will  blow 
it  away.  But  all  the  good  of  nature  is  the  soul's,  and 
may  be  had,  if  paid  for  in  nature's  lawful  coin,  that  is, 
by  labor  which  the  heart  and  the  head  allow.  I  no 
longer  wish  to  meet  a  good  I  do  not  earn,  for  ex 
ample,  to  find  a  pot  of  buried  gold,  knowing  that  it 
brings  with  it  new  responsibility.  I  do  not  wish  more 
external  goods,  —  neither  possessions,  nor  honors,  nor 
powers,  nor  persons.  The  gain  is  apparent :  the 
tax  is  certain.  But  there  is  no  tax  on  the  knowledge 
that  the  compensation  exists,  and  that  it  is  not  desira 
ble  to  dig  up  treasure.  Herein  I  rejoice  with  a 
serene  eternal  peace.  I  contract  the  boundaries  of 
possible  mischief.  I  learn  the  wisdom  of  St.  Ber 
nard,  "  Nothing  can  work  me  damage  except  myself ; 
the  harm  that  I  sustain,  I  carry  about  with  me,  and 
never  am  a  real  sufferer  but  by  my  own  fault." 

In  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  the  compensation  for 
the  inequalities  of  condition.  The  radical  tragedy  of 
nature  seems  to  be  the  distinction  of  More  and  Less. 
How  can  Less  not  feel  the  pain  ;  how  not  feel  indig 
nation  or  malevolence  towards  More  ?  Look  at  those 


102  ESSAY   III. 

who  have  less  faculty,  and  one  feels  sad,  and  knows 
not  well  what  to  make  of  it.  Almost  he  shuns  their 
eye  ;  almost  he  fears  they  will  upbraid  God.  What 
should  they  do  ?  It  seems  a  great  injustice.  But 
face  the  facts,  and  see  them  nearly,  and  these  moun 
tainous  inequalities  vanish.  Love  reduces  them  all,  as 
the  sun  melts  the  iceberg  in  the  sea.  The  heart  and 
soul  of  all  men  being  one,  this  bitterness  of  His  and 
Mine  ceases.  His  is  mine.  I  am  my  brother,  and 
my  brother  is  me.  If  I  feel  overshadowed  and  out 
done  by  great  neighbors,  I  can  yet  love  ;  I  can  still 
receive  ;  and  he  that  loveth,  maketh  his  own  the  gran 
deur  he  loves.  Thereby  I  make  the  discovery  that 
my  brother  is  my  guardian,  acting  for  me  with  the 
friendliest  designs,  and  the  estate  I  so  admired  and 
envied,  is  my  own.  It  is  the  eternal  nature  of  the  soul 
to  appropriate  and  make  all  things  its  own.  Jesus  and 
Shakspeare  are  fragments  of  the  soul,  and  by  love  I 
conquer  and  incorporate  them  in  my  own  conscious 
domain.  His  virtue,  —  is  not  that  mine  ?  His  wit,  — 
if  it  cannot  be  made  mine,  it  is  not  wit. 

Such,  also,  is  the  natural  history  of  calamity.  The 
changes  which  break  up  at  short  intervals  the  prosper 
ity  of  men,  are  advertisements  of  a  nature  whose  law 
is  growth.  Evermore  it  is  the  order  of  nature  to 
grow,  and  every  soul  is  by  this  intrinsic  necessity  quit 
ting  its  whole  system  of  things,  its  friends,  and  home, 
and  laws,  and  faith,  as  the  shell-fish  crawls  out  of  its 
beautiful  but  stony  case,  because  it  no  longer  admits  of 
its  growth,  and  slowly  forms  a  new  house.  In  pro 
portion  to  the  vigor  of  the  individual,  these  revolu- 


COMPENSATION.  103 

tions  are  frequent,  until  in  some  happier  mind  they 
are  incessant,  and  all  worldly  relations  hang  very 
loosely  about  him,  becoming,  as  it  were,  a  transparent 
fluid  membrane  through  which  the  form  is  alway  seen, 
and  not  as  in  most  men  an  indurated  heterogeneous 
fabric  of  many  dates,  and  of  no  settled  character,  in 
which  the  man  is  imprisoned.  Then  there  can  be  en- 
largement,  and  the  man  of  to-day  scarcely  recognises 
the  man  of  yesterday.  And  such  should  be  the  out 
ward  biography  of  man  in  time,  a  putting  off  of  dead 
circumstances  day  by  day,  as  he  renews  his  raiment 
day  by  day.  But  to  us,  in  our  lapsed  estate,  resting 
not  advancing,  resisting  not  cooperating  with  the  di 
vine  expansion,  this  growth  comes  by  shocks. 

We  cannot  part  with  our  friends.  We  cannot  let 
our  angels  go.  We  do  not  see  that  they  only  go  out, 
that  archangels  may  come  in.  We  are  idolaters  of 
the  old.  We  do  not  believe  in  the  riches  of  the  soul, 
in  its  proper  eternity  and  omnipresence.  We  do  not 
believe  there  is  any  force  in  to-day  to  rival  or  re-cre 
ate  that  beautiful  yesterday.  We  linger  in  the  ruins 
of  the  old  tent,  where  once  we  had  bread  and  shelter 
and  organs,  nor  believe  that  the  spirit  can  feed,  cover, 
and  nerve  us  again.  We  cannot  again  find  aught  so 
dear,  so  sweet,  so  graceful.  But  we  sit  and  weep  in 
vain.  The  voice  of  the  Almighty  saith,  '  Up  and  on 
ward  forevermore  !  '  We  cannot  stay  amid  the  ruins. 
Neither  will  we  rely  on  the  New  ;  and  so  we  walk 
ever  with  reverted  eyes,  like  those  monsters  who  look 
backwards. 

And  yet  the  compensations  of  calamity  are  made 


104  ESSAY    III. 

apparent  to  the  understanding  also,  after  long  intervals 
of  time.  A  fever,  a  mutilation,  a  cruel  disappoint 
ment,  a  loss  of  wealth,  a  loss  of  friends  seems  at  the 
moment  unpaid  loss,  and  unpayable.  But  the  sure 
years  reveal  the  deep  remedial  force  that  underlies 
all  facts.  The  death  of  a  dear  friend,  wife,  brother, 
lover,  which  seemed  nothing  but  privation,  somewhat 
later  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  guide  or  genius  ;  for  it 
commonly  operates  revolutions  in  our  way  of  life, 
terminates  an  epoch  of  infancy  or  of  youth  which 
was  waiting  to  be  closed,  breaks  up  a  wonted  occupa 
tion,  or  a  household,  or  style  of  living,  and  allows  the 
formation  of  new  ones  more  friendly  to  the  growth  of 
character.  It  permits  or  constrains  the  formation  of 
new  acquaintances,  and  the  reception  of  new  influen 
ces  that  prove  of  the  first  importance  to  the  next 
years  ;  and  the  man  or  woman  who  would  have  re 
mained  a  sunny  garden  flower,  with  no  room  for  its 
roots  and  too  much  sunshine  for  its  head,  by  the  fall 
ing  of  the  walls  and  the  neglect  of  the  gardener,  is 
made  the  banian  of  the  forest,  yielding  shade  and 
fruit  to  wide  neighborhoods  of  men. 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS 


5* 


ESSAY   IY. 
SPIRITUAL    LAWS 


WHEN  the  act  of  reflection  takes  place  in  the  mind, 
when  \ve  look  at  ourselves  in  the  light  of  thought,  we 
discover  that  our  life  is  embosomed  in  beauty.  Be 
hind  us,  as  we  go,  all  things  assume  pleasing  forms, 
as  clouds  do  far  off.  Not  only  things  familiar  and 
stale,  but  even  the  tragic  and  terrible  are  comely, 
as  they  take  their  place  in  the  pictures  of  mem 
ory.  The  river-bank,  the  weed  at  the  water-side,  the 
old  house,  the  foolish  person,  —  however  neglected  in 
the  passing,  —  have  a  grace  in  the  past.  Even  the 
corpse  that  has  lain  in  the  chambers  has  added  a  sol 
emn  ornament  to  the  house.  The  soul  will  not  know 
either  deformity  or  pain.  If  in  the  hours  of  clear 
reason  we  should  speak  the  severest  truth,  we  should 
say,  that  we  had  never  made  a  sacrifice.  In  these 
hours  the  mind  seems  so  great,  that  nothing  can  be 


108  ESSAY    IV. 

taken  from  us  that  seems  much.  All  loss,  all  pain  is 
particular  :  the  universe  remains  to  the  heart  unhurt. 
Distress  never,  trifles  never  abate  our  trust.  No  man 
ever  stated  his  griefs  as  lightly  as  he  might.  Allow 
for  exaggeration  in  the  most  patient  and  sorely  ridden 
hack  that  ever  was  driven.  For  it  is  only  the  finite 
that  has  wrought  and  suffered  ;  the  infinite  lies 
stretched  in  smiling  repose. 

The  intellectual  life  may  be  kept  clean  and  health 
ful,  if  man  will  live  the  life  of  nature,  and  not  import 
into  his  mind  difficulties  which  are  none  of  his.  No 
man  need  be  perplexed  in  his  speculations.  Let  him 
do  and  say  what  strictly  belongs  to  him,  and  though 
very  ignorant  of  books,  his  nature  shall  not  yield  him 
any  intellectual  obstructions  and  doubts.  Our  young 
people  are  diseased  with  the  theological  problems  of 
original  sin,  origin  of  evil,  predestination,  and  the 
like.  These  never  presented  a  practical  difficulty  to 
any  man,  —  never  darkened  across  any  man's  road, 
who  did  not  go  out  of  his  way  to  seek  them.  These 
are  the  soul's  mumps  and  measles,  and  whooping- 
coughs,  and  those  who  have  not  caught  them,  cannot 
describe  their  health  or  prescribe  the  cure.  A  simple 
mind  will  not  know  these  enemies.  It  is  quite  ano 
ther  thing  that  he  should  be  able  to  give  account  of 
his  faith,  and  expound  to  another  the  theory  of  his  self- 
union  and  freedom.  This  requires  rare  gifts.  Yet 
without  this  self-knowledge,  there  may  be  a  sylvan 
strength  arid  integrity  in  that  which  he  is.  "  A  few 
strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules  "  suffice  us. 

My  will  never  gave  the  images  in  my  mind  the  rank 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  109 

they  now  take.  The  regular  course  of  studies,  the 
years  of  academical  and  professional  education  have 
not  yielded  me  better  facts  than  some  idle  books 
under  the  bench  at  the  Latin  school.  What  we  do 
not  call  education  is  more  precious  than  that  which 
we  call  so.  We  form  no  guess  at  the  time  of  receiv 
ing  a  thought,  of  its  comparative  value.  And  educa 
tion  often  wastes  its  effort  in  attempts  to  thwart  and 
baulk  this  natural  magnetism  which  with  sure  discrim 
ination  selects  its  own. 

In  like  manner,  our  moral  nature  is  vitiated  by  any 
interference  of  our  will.  People  represent  virtue  as 
a  struggle,  and  take  to  themselves  great  airs  upon 
their  attainments,  and  the  question  is  every  where  vexed, 
when  a  noble  nature  is  commended,  Whether  the  man 
is  not  better  who  strives  with  temptation  ?  But  there 
is  no  merit  in  the  matter.  Either  God  is  there,  or  he 
is  not  there.  We  love  characters  in  proportion  as 
they  are  impulsive  and  spontaneous.  The  less  a  man 
thinks  or  knows  about  his  virtues,  the  better  we  like 
him.  Timoleon's  victories  are  the  best  victories ; 
which  ran  and  flowed  like  Homer's  verses,  Plutarch 
said.  When  we  see  a  soul  whose  acts  are  all  regal, 
graceful  and  pleasant  as  roses,  we  must  thank  God 
that  such  things  can  be  and  are,  and  not  turn  sourly 
on  the  angel,  and  say,  '  Crump  is  a  better  man  with  his 
grunting  resistance  to  all  his  native  devils.' 

Not  less  conspicuous  is  the  preponderance  of  na 
ture  over  will  in  all  practical  life.  There  is  less  in 
tention  in  history  than  we  ascribe  to  it.  We  impute 
deep-laid,  far-sighted  plans  to  Caesar  and  Napoleon ; 


110  ESSAY    IV. 

but  the  best  of  their  power  was  in  nature,  not  in  them. 
Men  of  an  extraordinary  success,  in  their  honest  mo 
ments,  have  always  sung,  '  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us.' 
According  to  the  faith  of  their  times,  they  have  built 
altars  to  Fortune  or  to  Destiny,  or  to  St.  Julian.  Their 
success  lay  in  their  parallelism  to  the  course  of  thought, 
which  found  in  them  an  unobstructed  channel ;  and 
the  wonders  of  which  they  were  the  visible  conduct 
ors,  seemed  to  the  eye  their  deed.  Did  the  wires  ge 
nerate  the  galvanism  ?  It  is  even  true  that  there 
was  less  in  them  on  which  they  could  reflect,  than 
in  another ;  as  the  virtue  of  a  pipe  is  to  be  smooth 
and  hollow.  That  which  externally  seemed  will  and 
immovableness,  was  willingness  and  self-annihilation. 
Could  Shakspeare  give  a  theory  of  Shakspeare  ? 
Could  ever  a  man  of  prodigious  mathematical  ge 
nius  convey  to  others  any  insight  into  his  methods  ?  If 
he  could  communicate  that  secret,  instantly  it  would 
lose  all  its  exaggerated  value,  blending  with  the  day 
light  and  the  vital  energy,  the  power  to  stand  and  to  go. 
The  lesson  is  forcibly  taught  by  these  observations 
that  our  life  might  be  much  easier  and  simpler  than 
we  make  it,  that  the  world  might  be  a  happier  place 
than  it  is,  that  there  is  no  need  of  struggles,  convul 
sions,  and  despairs,  of  the  wringing  of  the  hands  and 
the  gnashing  of  the  teeth  ;  that  we  miscreate  our  own 
evils.  We  interfere  with  the  optimism  of  nature,  for, 
whenever  we  get  this  vantage  ground  of  the  past, 
or  of  a  wiser  mind  in  the  present,  we  are  able  to 
discern  that  we  are  begirt  with  spiritual  laws  which  ex 
ecute  themselves. 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  Ill 

The  face  of  external  nature  teaches  the  same  les 
son  with  calm  superiority.  Nature  will  not  have  us 
fret  and  fume.  She  does  not  like  our  benevolence  or 
our  learning,  much  better  than  she  likes  our  frauds 
and  wars.  When  we  come  out  of  the  caucus,  or  the 
bank,  or  the  Abolition  convention,  or  the  Temperance 
meeting,  or  the  Transcendental  club,  into  the  fields 
and  woods,  she  says  to  us,  "  So  hot  ?  my  little  sir." 

We  are  full  of  mechanical  actions.  We  must  needs 
intermeddle,  and  have  things  in  our  own  way,  until  the 
sacrifices  and  virtues  of  society  are  odious.  Love 
should  make  joy ;  but  our  benevolence  is  unhappy. 
Our  Sunday  schools  and  churches  and  pauper-socie 
ties  are  yokes  to  the  neck.  We  pain  ourselves  to 
please  nobody.  There  are  natural  ways  of  arriv^ 
ing  at  the  same  ends  at  which  these  aim,  but  do  not 
arrive.  Why  should  all  virtue  work  in  one  and  the 
same  way  ?  Why  should  all  give  dollars  ?  It  is  very 
inconvenient  to  us  country  folk,  and  we  do  not  think 
any  good  will  corne  of  it.  We  have  not  dollars.  Mer 
chants  have.  Let  them  give  them.  Farmers  will 
give  corn.  Poets  will  sing.  Women  will  sew.  La 
borers  will  lend  a  hand.  The  children  will  bring 
flowers.  And  why  drag  this  dead  weight  of  a  Sunday 
school  over  the  whole  Christendom  ?  It  is  natural  and 
beautiful  that  childhood  should  inquire,  and  maturity 
should  teach  ;  but  it  is  time  enough  to  answer  questions, 
when  they  are  asked.  Do  not  shut  up  the  young  peo 
ple  against  their  will  in  a  pew,  and  force  the  children  to 
ask  them  questions  for  an  hour  against  their  will. 
If  we  look  wider,  things  are  all  alike  ;  laws,  an.di 


112  ESSAY   IV". 

letters,  and  creeds  and  modes  of  living,  seem  a  tra- 
vestie  of  truth.  Our  society  is  encumbered  by  pon 
derous  machinery  which  resembles  the  endless  aque 
ducts  which  the  Romans  built  over  hill  and  dale,  and 
which  are  superseded  by  the  discovery  of  the  law  that 
water  rises  to  the  level  of  its  source.  It  is  a  Chinese 
wall  which  any  nimble  Tartar  can  leap  over.  It  is  a 
standing  army,  not  so  good  as  a  peace.  It  is  a  gra 
duated,  titled,  richly  appointed  Empire,  quite  superflu 
ous  when  Town-meetings  are  found  to  answer  just  as 
well. 

Let  us  draw  a  lesson  from  nature,  which  always 
works  by  short  ways.  When  the  fruit  is  ripe,  it  falls. 
When  the  fruit  is  despatched,  the  leaf  falls.  The 
circuit  of  the  waters  is  mere  falling.  The  walking 
of  man  and  all  animals  is  a  falling  forward.  All 
our  manual  labor  and  works  of  strength,  as  prying, 
splitting,  digging,  rowing,  and  so  forth,  are  done  by 
dint  of  continual  falling,  and  the  globe,  earth,  moon, 
comet,  sun,  star,  fall  forever  and  ever. 

The  simplicity  of  the  universe  is  very  different  from 
the  simplicity  of  a  machine.  He  who  sees  moral 
nature  out  and  out,  and  thoroughly  knows  how 
knowledge  is  acquired  and  character  formed,  is  a  pe 
dant.  The  simplicity  of  nature  is  not  that  which  may 
easily  be  read,  but  is  inexhaustible.  The  last  analy 
sis  can  no  wise  be  made.  We  judge  of  a  man's  wis 
dom  by  his  hope,  knowing  that  the  perception  of  the 
inexhaustibleness  of  nature  is  an  immortal  youth. 
The  wild  fertility  of  nature  is  felt  in  comparing  our 
rigid  names  and  reputations  with  our  fluid  conscious- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  113 

ness.  We  pass  in  the  world  for  sects  and  schools,  for 
erudition  and  piely,  and  we  are  all  the  time  jejune 
babes.  One  sees  very  well  how  Pyrrhonism  grew 
up.  Every  man  sees  that  he  is  that  middle  point 
whereof  every  thing  may  be  affirmed  and  denied 
with  equal  reason.  He  is  old,  he  is  young,  he  is  very 
wise,  he  is  altogether  ignorant.  He  hears  and  feels 
what  you  say  of  the  seraphim,  and  of  the  tin-pedlar. 
There  is  no  permanent  wise  man,  except  in  the  fig 
ment  of  the  stoics.  We  side  with  the  hero,  as  we 
read  or  paint,  against  the  coward  and  the  robber  ; 
but  we  have  been  ourselves  that  coward  and  robber, 
and  shall  be  again,  not  in  the  low  circumstance, 
but  in  comparison  with  the  grandeurs  possible  to  the 
soul. 

A  little  consideration  of  what  takes  place  around 
us  every  day,  would  show  us  that  a  higher  law,  than 
that  of  our  will,  regulates  events ;  that  our  painful  la 
bors  are  very  unnecessary,  and  altogether  fruit 
less  ;  that  only  in  our  easy,  simple,  spontaneous  action 
are  we  strong,  and  by  contenting  ourselves  with  obe 
dience  we  become  divine.  Belief  and  love,  —  a  be 
lieving  love  will  relieve  us  of  a  vast  load  of  care. 
O  myb  rothers,  God  exists.  There  is  a  soul  at  the 
centre  of  nature,  and  over  the  will  of  every  man,  so 
that  none  of  us  can  wrong  the  universe.  It  has  so 
infused  its  strong  enchantment  into  nature,  that  we 
prosper  when  we  accept  its  advice,  and  when  we 
struggle  to  wound  its  creatures,  our  hands  are  glued 
to  our  sides,  or  they  beat  our  own  breasts.  The  whole 
course  of  things  goes  to  teach  us  faith.  We  need 


114  ESSAY    IV. 

only  obey.  There  is  guidance  for  each  of  us,  and  by 
lowly  listening  we  shall  hear  the  right  word.  Why 
need  you  choose  so  painfully  your  place,  and  occupa 
tion,  and  associates,  and  modes  of  action,  and  of  en 
tertainment  ?  Certainly  there  is  a  possible  right  for 
you  that  precludes  the  need  of  balance  and  wilful 
election.  For  you  there  is  a  reality,  a  fit  place  and 
congenial  duties.  Place  yourself  in  the  middle  of 
the  stream  of  power  and  wisdom  which  flows  into 
you  as  life,  place  yourself  in  the  full  centre  of  that 
food,  then  you  are  without  effort  impelled  to  truth,  to 
right,  and  a  perfect  contentment.  Then  you  put  all 
gainsay ers  in  the  wrong.  Then  you  are  the  world, 
the  measure  of  right,  of  truth,  of  beauty.  If  we  will 
not  be  mar-plots  with  our  miserable  interferences, 
the  work,  the  society,  letters,  arts,  science,  religion 
of  men,  would  go  on  far  better  than  nowr  and  the 
Heaven  predicted  from  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
and  still  predicted  from  the  bottom  of  the  heart,  would 
organize  itself,  as  do  now  the  rose  and  the  air  and  the 
sun* 

I  say,  do  not  choose ;  but  that  is  a  figure  of  speech 
by  which  I  would  distinguish  what  is  commonly  called 
choice  among  men,  and  which  is  a  partial  act,  the 
choice  of  the  hands,  of  the  eyes,  of  the  appetites, 
and  not  a  whole  act  of  the  man.  But  that  which  I 
call  right  or  goodness,  is  the  choice  of  my  constitution  ; 
and  that  which  I  call  heaven,  and  inwardly  aspire 
after,  is  the  state  or  circumstance  desirable  to  my 
constitution  ;  and  the  action  which  I  in  all  my  years 
tend  to  do,  is  the  work  for  my  faculties.  We  must 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  115 

hold  a  man  amenable  to  reason  for  the  choice  of  his 
daily  craft  or  profession.  It  is  not  an  excuse  any 
longer  for  his  deeds  that  they  are  the  custom  of  his 
trade.  What  business  has  he  with  an  evil  trade  ? 
Has  he  not  a  calling  in  his  character. 

Each  man  has  his  own  vocation.  The  talent  is  the 
call.  There  is  one  direction  in  which  all  space  is 
open  to  him.  He  has  faculties  silently  inviting  him 
thither  to  endless  exertion.  He  is  like  a  ship  in  a 
river  ;  he  runs  against  obstructions  on  every  side  but 
one  ;  on  that  side,  all  obstruction  is  taken  away,  and 
he  sweeps  serenely  over  God's  depths  into  an  infinite 
sea.  This  talent  and  this  call  depend  on  his  organi 
zation,  or  the  mode  in  which  the  general  soul  incar 
nates  itself  in  him.  He  inclines  to  do  something 
which  is  easy  to  him,  and  good  when  it  is  done,  but 
which  no  other  man  can  do.  He  has  no  rival.  For 
the  more  truly  he  consults  his  own  powers,  the  more 
difference  will  his  work  exhibit  from  the  work  of  any 
other.  When  he  is  true  and  faithful,  his  ambition  is 
exactly  proportioned  to  his  powers.  The  height  of 
the  pinnacle  is  determined  by  the  breadth  of  the  base. 
Every  man  has  this  call  of  the  power  to  do  somewhat 
unique,  and  no  man  has  any  other  call.  The  pretence 
that  he  has  another  call,  a  summons  by  name  and 
personal  election  and  outward  "  signs  that  mark  him 
extraordinary,  and  not  in  the  roll  of  common  men," 
is  fanaticism,  and  betrays  obtuseness  to  perceive  that 
there  is  one  mind  in  all  the  individuals,  and  no  respect 
of  persons  therein. 

By  doing  his  work,  he  makes  the  need  felt  which 


116  ESSAY    IV. 

he  can  supply.  He  creates  the  taste  by  which  he  is 
enjoyed.  He  provokes  the  wants  to  which  he  can 
minister.  By  doing  his  own  work,  he  unfolds  him 
self.  It  is  the  vice  of  our  public  speaking,  that  it  has 
not  abandonment.  Somewhere,  not  only  every  orator 
but  every  man  should  let  out  all  the  length  of  all  the 
reins  ;  should  find  or  make  a  frank  and  hearty  expres 
sion  of  what  force  and  meaning  is  in  him.  The  com 
mon  experience  is,  that  the  man  fits  himself  as  well 
as  he  can  to  the  customary  details  of  that  work  or 
trade  he  falls  into,  and  tends  it  as  a  dog  turns  a  spit. 
Then  is  he  a  part  of  the  machine  he  moves ;  the 
man  is  lost.  Until  he  can  manage  to  communicate 
himself  to  others  in  his  full  stature  and  proportion  as 
a  wise  and  good  man,  he  does  not  yet  find  his  voca 
tion.  He  must  find  in  that  an  outlet  for  his  character, 
so  that  he  may  justify  himself  to  their  eyes  for  doing 
what  he  does.  If  the  labor  is  trivial,  let  him  by  his 
thinking  and  character,  make  it  liberal.  Whatever 
he  knows  and  thinks,  whatever  in  his  apprehension  is 
worth  doing,  that  let  him  communicate,  or  men  will 
never  know  and  honor  him  aright.  Foolish,  when 
ever  you  take  the  meanness  and  formality  of  that 
thing  you  do,  instead  of  converting  it  into  the  obedi 
ent  spiracle  of  your  character  and  aims. 

We  like  only  such  actions  as  have  already  long 
had  the  praise  of  men,  and  do  not  perceive  that  any 
thing  man  can  do,  may  be  divinely  done.  We  think 
greatness  entailed  or  organized  in  some  places  or 
duties,  in  certain  offices  or  occasions,  and  do  not  see 
that  Paganini  can  extract  rapture  from  a  catgut,  and 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  117 

Eulenstein  from  a  jews-harp,  and  a  nimble-fingered 
lad  out  of  shreds  of  paper  with  his  scissors ;  and 
Landseer  out  of  swine,  and  the  hero  out  of  the  pitiful 
habitation  and  company  in  which  he  was  hidden. 
What  we  call  obscure  condition  or  vulgar  society,  is 
that  condition  and  society  whose  poetry  is  not  yet 
written,  but  which  you  shall  presently  make  as  envi 
able  and  renowned  as  any.  Accept  your  genius,  and 
say  what  you  think.  In  our  estimates,  let  us  take  a  les 
son  from  kings.  The  parts  of  hospitality,  the  connection 
of  families,  the  impressiveness  of  death,  and  a  thou 
sand  other  things,  royalty  makes  its  own  estimate  of, 
and  a  royal  mind  will.  To  make  habitually  a  new 
estimate,  —  that  is  elevation. 

What  a  man  does,  that  he  has.  What  has  he  to  do 
with  hope  or  fear  ?  In  himself  is  his  might.  Let  him 
regard  no  good  as  solid,  but  that  which  is  in  his  nature, 
and  which  must  grow  out  of  him  as  long  as  he  exists. 
The  goods  of  fortune  may  come  and  go  like  summer 
leaves  ;  let  him  play  with  them,  and  scatter  them  on 
every  wind  as  the  momentary  signs  of  his  infinite 
productiveness. 

He  may  have  his  own.  A  man's  genius,  the  qual 
ity  that  differences  him  from  every  other,  the  suscep 
tibility  to  one  class  of  influences,  the  selection  of  what 
is  fit  for  him,  the  rejection  of  what  is  unfit,  determines 
for  him  the  character  of  the  universe.  As  a  man 
thinketh,  so  is  he,  and  as  a  man  chooseth,  so  is  he 
and  so  is  nature.  A  man  is  a  method,  a  progressive 
arrangement ;  a  selecting  principle,  gathering  his  like 
to  him,  wherever  he  goes.  He  takes  only  his  own, 


118  ESSAY    IV. 

out  of  the  multiplicity  that  sweeps  and  circles  round 
him.  He  is  like  one  of  those  booms  which  are  set 
out  from  the  shore  on  rivers  to  catch  drift-wood,  or 
like  the  loadstone  amongst  splinters  of  steel. 

Those  facts,  words,  persons  which  dwell  in  his  me 
mory  without  his  being  able  to  say  why,  remain,  be 
cause  they  have  a  relation  to  him  not  less  real  for  be 
ing  as  yet  unapprehended.  They  are  symbols  of 
value  to  him,  as  they  can  interpret  parts  of  his  con 
sciousness  which  he  would  vainly  seek  words  for  in 
the  conventional  images  of  books  and  other  minds. 
What  attracts  my  attention  shall  have  it,  as  I  will  go 
to  the  man  who  knocks  at  my  door,  whilst  a  thousand 
persons,  as  worthy,  go  by  it,  to  whom  I  give  no  regard. 
It  is  enough  that  these  particulars  speak  to  me.  A 
few  anecdotes,  a  few  traits  of  character,  manners, 
face,  a  few  incidents  have  an  emphasis  in  your  mem 
ory  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  apparent  signifi 
cance,  if  you  measure  them  by  the  ordinary  stand 
ards.  They  relate  to  your  gift.  Let  them  have  their 
weight,  and  do  not  reject  them  and  cast  about  for 
illustration  and  facts  more  usual  in  literature.  Re 
spect  them,  for  they  have  their  origin  in  deepest  na 
ture.  What  your  heart  thinks  great,  is  great.  The 
soul's  emphasis  is  always  right. 

Over  all  things  that  are  agreeable  to  his  nature  and 
genius,  the  man  has  the  highest  right.  Every  where 
he  may  take  what  belongs  to  his  spiritual  estate,  nor 
can  he  take  any  thing  else,  though  all  doors  were 
open,  nor  can  all  the  force  of  men  hinder  him  from 
taking  so  much.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  keep  a  se- 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  119 

cret  from  one  who  has  a  right  to  know  it.  It  will  tell 
itself.  That  mood  into  which  a  friend  can  bring  us, 
is  his  dominion  over  us.  To  the  thoughts  of  that  state 
of  mind,  he  has  a  right.  All  the  secrets  of  that  state 
of  mind,  he  can  compel.  This  is  a  law  which  states 
men  use  in  practice.  All  the  terrors  of  the  French 
Republic,  which  held  Austria  in  awe,  were  un 
able  to  command  her  diplomacy.  But  Napoleon 
sent  to  Vienna  M.  de  Narbonne,  one  of  the  old  no 
blesse,  with  the  morals,  manners  and  name  of  that 
interest,  saying,  that  it  was  indispensable  to  send  to  the 
old  aristocracy  of  Europe,  men  of  the  same  connex 
ion,  which,  in  fact,  constitutes  a  sort  of  free-masonry. 
M.  Narbonne,  in  less  than  a  fortnight,  penetrated  all 
the  secrets  of  the  Imperial  Cabinet. 

A  mutual  understanding  is  ever  the  firmest  chain. 
Nothing  seems  so  easy  as  to  speak  and  to  be  under 
stood.  Yet  a  man  may  come  to  find  that  the  strong 
est  of  defences  and  of  ties,  —  that  he  has  been  under 
stood  ;  and  he  who  has  received  an  opinion,  may  come 
to  find  it  the  most  inconvenient  of  bonds. 

If  a  teacher  have  any  opinion  which  he  wishes  to 
conceal,  his  pupils  will  become  as  fully  indoctrinated 
into  that  as  into  any  which  he  publishes.  If  you  pour 
water  into  a  vessel  twisted  into  coils  and  angles,  it  is 
vain  to  say,  I  will  pour  it  only  into  this  or  that ;  —  it  will 
find  its  own  level  in  all.  Men  feel  and  act  the  con 
sequences  of  your  doctrine,  without  being  able  to  show- 
how  they  follow.  Show  us  an  arc  of  the  curve,  and 
a  good  mathematician  will  find  out  the  whole  figure. 
We  are  always  reasoning  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen, 


120  ESSAY    IV. 

Hence  the  perfect  intelligence  that  subsists  between 
wise  men  of  remote  ages.  A  man  cannot  bury  his 
meanings  so  deep  in  his  book,  but  time  and  like-minded 
men  will  find  them.  Plato  had  a  secret  doctrine,  had 
he  ?  What  secret  can  he  conceal  from  the  eyes  of 
Bacon  ?  of  Montaigne  ?  of  Kant  ?  Therefore,  Aris 
totle  said  of  his  works,  "  They  are  published  and  not 
published." 

No  man  can  learn  what  he  has  not  preparation  for 
learning,  however  near  to  his  eyes  is  the  object.  A 
chemist  may  tell  his  most  precious  secrets  to  a  car 
penter,  and  he  shall  be  never  the  wiser,  —  the  secrets 
he  would  not  utter  to  a  chemist  for  an  estate.  God 
screens  us  evermore  from  premature  ideas.  Our 
eyes  are  holden  that  we  cannot  see  things  that  stare 
us  in  the  face,  until  the  hour  arrives  when  the  mind  is 
ripened, —  then  we  behold  them,  and  the  time  when 
we  saw  them  not,  is  like  a  dream. 

Not  in  nature  but  in  man  is  all  the  beauty  and 
worth  he  sees.  The  world  is  very  empty,  and  is  in 
debted  to  this  gilding,  exalting  soul  for  all  its  pride. 
"  Earth  fills  her  lap  with  splendors  "  not  her  own.  The 
vale  of  Tempe,  Tivoli,  and  Rome  are  earth  and  wa 
ter,  rocks  and  sky.  There  are  as  good  earth  and 
water  in  a  thousand  places,  yet  how  unaffecting  ! 

People  are  not  the  better  for  the  sun  and  moon,  the 
horizon  and  the  trees ;  as  it  is  not  observed  that  the 
keepers  of  Roman  galleries,  or  the  valets  of  painters 
have  any  elevation  of  thought,  or  that  librarians 
are  wiser  men  than  others.  There  are  graces  in  the 
demeanor  of  a  polished  and  noble  person,  which  are 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  121 

lost  upon  the  eye  of  a  churl.      These  are  like  the 
stars  whose  light  has  not  yet  reached  us. 

He  may  see  what  he  maketh.  Our  dreams  are 
the  sequel  of  our  waking  knowledge.  The  visions 
of  the  night  always  bear  some  proportion  to  the 
visions  of  the  day.  Hideous  dreams  are  only  exag 
gerations  of  the  sins  of  the  day.  We  see  our  own 
evil  affections  embodied  in  bad  physiognomies.  On 
the  Alps,  the  traveller  sometimes  sees  his  own  sha 
dow  magnified  to  a  giant,  so  that  every  gesture  of  his 
hand  is  terrific.  "  My  children,"  said  an  old  man  to 
his  boys  scared  by  a  figure  in  the  dark  entry,  "  my 
children,  you  will  never  see  any  thing  worse  than 
yourselves."  As  in  dreams,  so  in  the  scarcely  less 
fluid  events  of  the  world,  every  man  sees  himself  in 
colossal,  without  knowing  that  it  is  himself  that  he 
sees.  The  good  which  he  sees,  compared  to  the  evil 
which  he  sees,  is  as  his  own  good  to  his  own  evil.  Every 
quality  of  his  mind  is  magnified  in  some  one  acquaint 
ance,  and  every  emotion  of  his  heart  in  some  one. 
He  is  like  a  quincunx  of  trees,  which  counts  five,  east, 
west,  north,  or  south  ;  or,  an  initial,  medial,  and  ter 
minal  acrostic.  And  why  not  ?  He  cleaves  to  one 
person,  and  avoids  another,  according  to  their  likeness 
or  unlikeness  to  himself,  truly  seeking  himself  in  his 
associates,  and  moreover  in  his  trade,  and  habits,  and 
gestures,  and  meats,  and  drinks  ;  and  comes  at  last  to 
be  faithfully  represented  by  every  view  you  take  of 
his  circumstances. 

He  may  read  what  he  writeth.     What  can  we  see 
or  acquire,  but  what  we  are  ?     You  have  seen  a  skilful 
6 


122  ESSAY    IV. 

man  reading  Virgil.  Well,  that  author  is  a  thousand 
books  to  a  thousand  persons.  Take  the  book  into 
your  two  hands,  and  read  your  eyes  out ;  you  will 
never  find  what  I  find.  If  any  ingenious  reader 
would  have  a  monopoly  of  the  wisdom  or  delight  he 
gets,  he  is  as  secure  now  the  book  is  Englished,  as  if 
it  were  imprisoned  in  the  Pelews  tongue.  It  is  with 
a  good  book  as  it  is  with  good  company.  Introduce  a 
base  person  among  gentlemen  :  it  is  all  to  no  purpose  : 
he  is  not  their  fellow.  Every  society  protects  itself. 
The  company  is  perfectly  safe,  and  he  is  not  one  of 
them,  though  his  body  is  in  the  room. 

What  avails  it  to  fight  with  the  eternal  laws  of 
mind,  which  adjust  the  relation  of  all  persons  to  each 
other,  by  the  mathematical  measure  of  their  havings 
and  beings  ?  Gertrude  is  enamored  of  Guy ;  how 
high,  how  aristocratic,  how  Roman  his  mien  and  man 
ners  !  to  live  with  him  were  life  indeed :  and  no  pur 
chase  is  too  great ;  and  heaven  and  earth  are  moved 
to  that  end.  Well,  Gertrude  has  Guy  :  but  what  now 
avails  how  high,  how  aristocratic,  how  Roman  his 
mien  and  manners,  if  his  heart  and  aims  are  in  the 
senate,  in  the  theatre,  and  in  the  billiard  room,  and 
she  has  no  aims,  no  conversation  that  can  enchant 
her  graceful  lord  ? 

He  shall  have  his  own  society.  We  can  love  no 
thing  but  nature.  The  most  wonderful  talents,  the 
most  meritorious  exertions  really  avail  very  little  with 
us  ;  but  nearness  or  likeness  of  nature,  —  how  beau 
tiful  is  the  ease  of  its  victory  !  Persons  approach  us 
famous  for  their  beauty,  for  their  accomplishments, 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  123 

worthy  of  all  wonder  for  their  charms  and  gifts : 
they  dedicate  their  whole  skill  to  the  hour  and  the 
company  ;  with  very  imperfect  result.  To  be  sure, 
it  would  be  very  ungrateful  in  us  not  to  praise  them 
very  loudly.  Then,  when  all  is  done,  a  person  of 
related  mind,  a  brother  or  sister  by  nature,  comes  to 
us  so  softly  and  easily,  so  nearly  and  intimately,  as  if 
it  were  the  blood  in  our  proper  veins,  that  we  feel  as 
if  some  one  was  gone,  instead  of  another  having 
come  :  we  are  utterly  relieved  and  refreshed  :  it  is  a 
sort  of  joyful  solitude.  We  foolishly  think,  in  our 
days  of  sin,  that  we  must  court  friends  by  compliance 
to  the  customs  of  society,  to  its  dress,  its  breeding  and 
its  estimates.  But  later,  if  we  are  so  happy,  we  learn 
that  only  that  soul  can  be  my  friend,  which  I  encoun 
ter  on  the  line  of  my  own  march,  that  soul  to  which 
I  do  not  decline,  and  which  does  not  decline  to  me, 
but,  native  of  the  same  celestial  latitude,  repeats  in  its 
own  all  my  experience.  The  scholar  and  the  prophet 
forget  themselves,  and  ape  the  customs  and  costumes 
of  the  man  of  the  world,  to  deserve  the  smile  of 
beauty.  He  is  a  fool  and  follows  some  giddy  girl, 
and  not  with  religious,  ennobling  passion,  a  woman 
with  all  that  is  serene,  oracular  and  beautiful  in  her 
soul.  Let  him  be  great,  and  love  shall  follow  him. 
Nothing  is  more  deeply  punished  than  the  neglect  of 
the  affinities  by  which  alone  society  should  be  formed, 
and  the  insane  levity  of  choosing  associates  by  others' 
eyes. 

He  may  set  his  own  rate.     It  is  an  universal  maxim 
worthy  of  all  acceptation,  that  a  man  may  have  that  al- 


124  ESSAY    IV. 

lowance  he  takes.  Take  the  place  and  attitude  to  which 
you  see  your  unquestionable  right,  and  all  men  acqui 
esce.  The  world  must  be  just.  It  always  leaves  every 
man  with  profound  unconcern  to  set  his  own  rate.  Hero 
or  driveller,  it  meddles  not  in  the  matter.  It  will  cer 
tainly  accept  your  own  measure  of  your  doing  and 
being,  whether  you  sneak  about  and  deny  your  own 
name,  or,  whether  you  see  your  work  produced  to  the 
concave  sphere  of  the  heavens,  one  with  the  revolu 
tion  of  the  stars. 

The  same  reality  pervades  all  teaching.  The  man 
may  teach  by  doing,  and  not  otherwise.  If  he  can 
communicate  himself,  he  can  teach,  but  not  by  words. 
He  teaches  who  gives,  and  he  learns  who  receives. 
There  is  no  teaching  until  the  pupil  is  brought  into 
the  same  state  or  principle  in  which  you  are  ;  a  trans 
fusion  takes  place  :  he  is  you,  and  you  are  he  ;  then 
is  a  teaching,  and  by  no  unfriendly  chance  or  bad 
company  can  he  ever  quite  lose  the  benefit.  But 
your  propositions  run  out  of  one  ear  as  they  ran  in  at 
the  other.  We  see  it  advertised  that  Mr.  Grand  will 
deliver  an  oration  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  Mr. 
Hand  before  the  Mechanics'  Association,  and  we  do 
not  go  thither,  because  we  know  that  these  gentlemen 
will  not  communicate  their  own  character  and  being 
to  the  audience.  If  we  had  reason  to  expect  such  a 
communication,  we  should  go  through  all  inconve 
nience  and  opposition.  The  sick  would  be  carried  in 
litters.  But  a  public  oration  is  an  escapade,  a  non 
committal,  an  apology,  a  gag,  and  not  a  communica 
tion,  not  a  speech,  not  a  man. 


SPIRITUAL     LAWS.  125 

A  like  Nemesis  presides  over  all  intellectual  works. 
We  have  yet  to  learn,  that  the  thing  uttered  in  words 
is  not  therefore  affirmed.  It  must  affirm  itself,  or  no 
forms  of  grammar  and  no  plausibility  can  give  it 
evidence,  and  no  array  of  arguments.  The  sentence 
must  also  contain  its  own  apology  for  being  spoken. 

The  effect  of  any  writing  on  the  public  mind  is 
mathematically  measurable  by  its  depth  of  thought. 
How  much  water  does  it  draw  ?  If  it  awaken  you 
to  think  ;  if  it  lift  you  from  your  feet  with  the  great 
voice  of  eloquence  ;  then  the  effect  is  to  be  wide, 
slow,  permanent,  over  the  minds  of  men  ;  if  the 
pages  instruct  you  not,  they  will  die  like  flies  in  the 
hour.  The  way  to  speak  and  write  what  shall  not 
go  out  of  fashion,  is,  to  speak  and  write  sincerely. 
The  argument  which  has  not  power  to  reach  my  own 
practice,  I  may  well  doubt,  will  fail  to  reach  yours. 
But  take  Sidney's  maxim  :  "  Look  in  thy  heart,  and 
write."  He  that  writes  to  himself,  writes  to  an  eter 
nal  public.  That  statement  only  is  fit  to  be  made 
public  which  you  have  come  at  in  attempting  to  satisfy 
your  own  curiosity.  The  writer  who  takes  his  sub 
ject  from  his  ear  and  not  from  his  heart,  should  know 
that  he  has  lost  as  much  as  he  seems  to  have  gained, 
and  when  the  empty  book  has  gathered  all  its  praise, 
and  half  the  people  say  — '  what  poetry  !  what  ge 
nius  ! '  it  still  needs  fuel  to  make  fire.  That  only 
profits  which  is  profitable.  Life  alone  can  impart 
life  ;  and  though  we  should  burst,  we  can  only  be 
valued  as  we  make  ourselves  valuable.  There  is  no 
luck  in  literary  reputation.  They  who  make  up  the 


126  ESSAY    IV. 

final  verdict  upon  every  book,  are  not  the  partial  and 
noisy  readers  of  the  hour  when  it  appears  ;  but  a 
court  as  of  angels,  a  public  not  to  be  bribed,  not  to 
be  entreated,  and  not  to  be  overawed,  decides  upon 
every  man's  title  to  fame.  Only  those  books  come 
down  which  deserve  to  last.  All  the  gilt  edges  and 
vellum  and  morocco,  all  the  presentation-copies  to  all 
the  libraries  will  not  preserve  a  book  in  circulation 
beyond  its  intrinsic  date.  It  must  go  with  all  Wai- 
pole's  Noble  and  Royal  Authors  to  its  fate.  Black- 
more,  Kotzebue,  or  Pollok  may  endure  for  a  night,  but 
Moses  and  Homer  stand  forever.  There  are  not  in 
the  world  at  any  one  time  more  than  a  dozen  persons 
who  read  and  understand  Plato  :  —  never  enough  to  pay 
for  an  edition  of  his  works ;  yet  to  every  generation 
these  come  duly  down,  for  the  sake  of  those  few  per 
sons,  as  if  God  brought  them  in  his  hand.  "  No 
book,"  said  Bentley,  "  was  ever  written  down  by  any 
but  itself."  The  permanence  of  all  books  is  fixed  by 
no  effort  friendly  or  hostile,  but  by  their  own  specific 
gravity,  or  the  intrinsic  importance  of  their  contents 
to  the  constant  mind  of  man.  "  Do  not  trouble  your 
self  too  much  about  the  light  on  your  statue,"  said 
Michael  Angelo  to  the  young  sculptor  ;  "  the  light  of  the 
public  square  will  test  its  value." 

In  like  manner  the  effect  of  every  action  is  meas 
ured  by  the  depth  of  the  sentiment  from  which  it 
proceeds.  The  great  man  knew  not  that  he  was 
great.  It  took  a  century  or  two,  for  that  fact  to  ap 
pear.  What  he  did,  he  did  because  he  must :  he  used 
no  election  :  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world, 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  127 

and  grew  out  of  the  circumstances  of  the  moment. 
But  now,  every  thing  he  did,  even  to  the  lifting  of  his 
finger,  or  the  eating  of  bread,  looks  large,  all-related, 
and  is  called  an  institution. 

These  are  the  demonstrations  in  a  few  particulars 
of  the  genius  of  nature :  they  show  the  direction  of 
the  stream.  But  the  stream  is  blood  :  every  drop  is 
alive.  Truth  has  not  single  victories :  all  things  are 
its  organs,  not  only  dust  and  stones,  but  errors  and 
lies.  The  laws  of  disease,  physicians  say,  are  as 
beautiful  as  the  laws  of  health.  Our  philosophy  is 
affirmative,  and  readily  accepts  the  testimony  of  nega 
tive  facts,  as  every  shadow  points  to  the  sun.  By  a 
divine  necessity,  every  fact  in  nature  is  constrained  to 
offer  its  testimony. 

Human  character  does  evermore  publish  itself.  It 
will  not  be  concealed.  It  hates  darkness,  —  it  rushes 
into  light.  The  most  fugitive  deed  and  word,  the 
mere  air  of  doing  a  thing,  the  intimated  purpose, 
expresses  character.  If  you  act,  you  show  character ; 
if  you  sit  still,  you  show  it ;  if  you  sleep,  you  show 
it.  You  think  because  you  have  spoken  nothing,  when 
others  spoke,  and  have  given  no  opinion  on  the  times, 
on  the  church,  on  slavery,  on  the  college,  on  parties 
and  persons,  that  your  verdict  is  still  expected  with 
curiosity  as  a  reserved  wisdom.  Far  otherwise ; 
your  silence  answers  very  loud.  You  have  no  oracle 
to  utter,  and  your  fellow  men  have  learned  that  you 
cannot  help  them  ;  for,  oracles  speak.  Doth  not  wis 
dom  cry,  and  understanding  put  forth  her  voice  ? 

Dreadful  limits  are  set  in  nature  to  the  powers  of 


128  ESSAY    IV. 

dissimulation.  Truth  tyrannizes  over  the  unwilling 
members  of  the  body.  Faces  never  lie,  it  is  said. 
No  man  need  be  deceived,  who  will  study  the  changes 
of  expression.  When  a  man  speaks  the  truth  in  the 
spirit  of  truth,  his  eye  is  as  clear  as  the  heavens. 
When  he  has  base  ends,  and  speaks  falsely,  the  eye  is 
muddy  and  sometimes  asquint. 

I  have  heard  an  experienced  counsellor  say,  that  he 
feared  never  the  effect  upon  a  jury,  of  a  lawyer  who 
does  not  believe  in  his  heart  that  his  client  ought  to 
have  a  verdict.  If  he  does  not  believe  it,  his  unbelief 
will  appear  to  the  jury,  despite  all  his  protestations, 
and  will  become  their  unbelief.  This  is  that  law 
whereby  a  work  of  art,  of  whatever  kind,  sets  us  in 
the  same  state  of  mind  wherein  the  artist  was,  when 
he  made  it.  That  which  we  do  not  believe,  we  can 
not  adequately  say,  though  we  may  repeat  the  words 
never  so  often.  It  was  this  conviction  which  Swe- 
denborg  expressed,  when  he  described  a  group  of 
persons  in  the  spiritual  world  endeavoring  in  vain  to 
articulate  a  proposition  which  they  did  not  believe : 
but  they  could  not,  though  they  twisted  and  folded 
their  lips  even  to  indignation. 

A  man  passes  for  that  he  is  worth.  Very  idle  is 
all  curiosity  concerning  other  people's  estimate  of  us, 
and  idle  is  all  fear  of  remaining  unknown.  If  a  man 
know  that  he  can  do  any  thing,  —  that  he  can  do  it 
better  than  any  one  else,  —  he  has  a  pledge  of  the 
acknowledgment  of  that  fact  by  all  persons.  The 
world  is  full  of  judgment  days,  and  into  every  assembly 
that  a  man  enters,  in  every  action  he  attempts,  he  is 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  129 

guaged  and  stamped.  In  every  troop  of  boys  that 
whoop  and  run  in  each  yard  and  square,  a  new  comer 
is  as  well  and  accurately  weighed  in  the  balance,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  days,  and  stamped  with  his  right 
number,  as  if  he  had  undergone  a  formal  trial  of  his 
strength,  speed,  and  temper.  A  stranger  comes  from 
a  distant  school,  with  better  dress,  with  trinkets  in  his 
pockets,  with  airs,  and  pretension :  an  old  boy  sniffs 
thereat,  and  says  to  himself,  4  It 's  of  no  use  :  we 
shall  find  him  out  tomorrow.'  '  What  hath  he 
done  ?  '  is  the  divine  question  which  searches  men, 
and  transpierces  every  false  reputation.  A  fop  may  sit 
in  any  chair  of  the  world,  nor  be  distinguished  for  his 
hour  from  Homer  and  Washington  ;  but  there  can 
never  be  any  doubt  concerning  the  respective  ability 
of  human  beings,  when  we  seek  the  truth.  Pretension 
may  sit  still,  but  cannot  act.  Pretension  never  feigned 
an  act  of  real  greatness.  Pretension  never  wrote  an 
Iliad,  nor  drove  back  Xerxes,  nor  christianized  the 
world,  nor  abolished  slavery. 

Always  as  much  virtue  as  there  is,  so  much  ap 
pears  ;  as  much  goodness  as  there  is,  so  much  reve 
rence  it  commands.  All  the  devils  respect  virtue. 
The  high,  the  generous,  the  self-devoted  sect  will 
always  instruct  and  command  mankind.  Never  a 
sincere  word  was  utterly  lost.  Never  a  magnanimity 
fell  to  the  ground.  Always  the  heart  of  man  greets 
and  accepts  it  unexpectedly.  A  man  passes  for  that 
he  is  worth.  What  he  is,  engraves  itself  on  his  face, 
on  his  form,  on  his  fortunes,  in  letters  of  light  which 
all  men  may  read  but  himself.  Concealment  avails 
6* 


130  ESSAY    IV. 

him  nothing  ;  boasting,  nothing.  There  is  confession 
in  the  glances  of  our  eyes  ;  in  our  smiles  ;  in  saluta 
tions  ;  and  the  grasp  of  hands.  His  sin  bedaubs  him, 
mars  all  his  good  impression.  Men  know  not  why 
they  do  not  trust  him  ;  but  they  do  not  trust  him.  His 
vice  glasses  his  eye,  demeans  his  cheek,  pinches 
the  nose,  sets  the  mark  of  the  beast  on  the  back  of 
the  head,  and  writes  O  fool !  fool !  on  the  forehead 
of  a  king. 

If  you  would  not  be  known  to  do  any  thing,  never 
do  it.  A  man  may  play  the  fool  in  the  drifts  of  a 
desert,  but  every  grain  of  sand  shall  seem  to  see. 
He  may  be  a  solitary  eater,  but  he  cannot  keep  his 
foolish  counsel.  A  broken  complexion,  a  swinish 
look,  ungenerous  acts,  and  the  want  of  due  know 
ledge,  —  all  blab.  Can  a  cook,  a  Chiffinch,  an  lach- 
imo  be  mistaken  for  Zeno  or  Paul  ?  Confucius  ex 
claimed,  "  How  can  a  man  be  concealed !  How  can 
a  man  be  concealed  !  " 

On  the  other  hand,  the  hero  fears  not,  that  if  he 
withhold  the  avowal  of  a  just  and  brave  act,  it  will 
go  unwitnessed  and  unloved.  One  knows  it,  —  him 
self,  —  and  is  pledged  by  it  to  sweetness  of  peace, 
and  to  nobleness  of  aim,  which  will  prove  in  the 
end  a  better  proclamation  of  it  than  the  relating  of 
the  incident.  Virtue  is  the  adherence  in  action  to  the 
nature  of  things,  and  the  nature  of  things  makes  it 
prevalent.  It  consists  in  a  perpetual  substitution  of 
being  for  seeming,  and  with  sublime  propriety  God  is 
described  as  saying,  I  AM. 

The  lesson  which  all  these  observations  convey,  is, 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  131 

Be  and  not  seem.  Let  us  acquiesce.  Let  us  take  our 
bloated  nothingness  out  of  the  path  of  the  divine  cir 
cuits.  Let  us  unlearn  our  wisdom  of  the  world.  Let 
us  lie  low  in  the  Lord's  power,  and  learn  that  truth 
alone  makes  rich  and  great. 

.  If  you  visit  your  friend,  why  need  you  apologize  for 
not  having  visited  him,  and  waste  his  time  and  deface 
your  own  act  ?  Visit  him  now.  Let  him  feel  that  the 
highest  love  has  come  to  see  him,  in  thee  its  lowest 
organ.  Or  why  need  you  torment  yourself  and  friend 
by  secret  self-reproaches  that  you  have  not  assisted 
him  or  complimented  him  with  gifts  and  salutations 
heretofore?  Be  a  gift  and  a  benediction.  Shine  with 
real  light,  and  not  with  the  borrowed  reflection  of  gifts. 
Common  men  are  apologies  for  men  ;  they  bow  the 
head,  they  excuse  themselves  with  prolix  reasons, 
they  accumulate  appearances,  because  the  substance 
is  not. 

We  are  full  of  these  superstitions  of  sense,  the 
worship  of  magnitude.  God  loveth  not  size  :  whale 
and  minnow  are  of  like  dimension.  But  we  call  the 
poet  inactive,  because  he  is  not  a  president,  a  mer 
chant,  or  a  porter.  We  adore  an  institution,  and  do 
not  see  that  it  is  founded  on  a  thought  which  we  have. 
But  real  action  is  in  silent  moments.  The  epochs  of 
our  life  are  not  in  the  visible  facts  of  our  choice  of  a 
calling,  our  marriage,  our  acquisition  of  an  office,  and 
the  like,  but  in  a  silent  thought  by  the  way-side  as  we 
walk  ;  in  a  thought  which  revises  our  entire  manner 
of  life,  and  says, '  Thus  hast  thou  done,  but  it  were 
better  thus.'  And  all  our  after  years,  like  menials,  do 


132  ESSAY    IV. 

serve  and  wait  on  this,  and,  according  to  their  ability, 
do  execute  its  will.  This  revisal  or  correction  is  a 
constant  force,  which,  as  a  tendency,  reaches  through 
our  lifetime.  The  object  of  the  man,  the  aim  of  these 
moments  is  to  make  daylight  shine  through  him,  to 
suffer  the  law  to  traverse  his  whole  being  without  ob 
struction,  so  that,  on  what  point  soever  of  his  doing 
your  eye  falls,  it  shall  report  truly  of  his  character, 
whether  it  be  his  diet,  his  house,  his  religious  forms, 
his  society,  his  mirth,  his  vote,  his  opposition.  Now 
he  is  not  homogeneous,  but  heterogeneous,  and  the  ray 
does  not  traverse  ;  there  are  no  thorough  lights  :  but 
the  eye  of  the  beholder  is  puzzled,  detecting  many 
unlike  tendencies,  and  a  life  not  yet  at  one. 

Why  should  we  make  it  a  point  with  our  false  mo 
desty  to  disparage  that  man  we  are,  and  that  form  of 
being  assigned  to  us  ?  A  good  man  is  contented.  I 
love  and  honor  Epaminondas,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
Epaminondas.  I  hold  it  more  just  to  love  the  world  of 
this  hour,  than  the  world  of  his  hour.  Nor  can  you, 
if  I  am  true,  excite  me  to  the  least  uneasiness  by 
saying,  '  he  acted,  and  thou  sittest  still.'  I  see  action 
to  be  good,  when  the  need  is,  and  sitting  still  to  be 
also  good.  Epaminondas,  if  he  was  the  man  I  take 
him  for,  would  have  sat  still  with  joy  and  peace,  if 
his  lot  had  been  mine.  Heaven  is  large,  and  affords 
space  for  all  modes  of  love  and  fortitude.  Why 
should  we  be  busy-bodies  and  superserviceable  ? 
Action  and  inaction  are  alike  to  the  true.  One 
piece  of  the  tree  is  cut  for  a  weathercock,  and  one  for 
the  sleeper  of  a  bridge ;  the  virtue  of  the  wood  is  ap 
parent  in  both. 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  133 

I  desire  not  to  disgrace  the  soul.  The  fact  that  I 
am  here,  certainly  shows  me  that  the  soul  had  need 
of  an  organ  here.  Shall  I  not  assume  the  post? 
Shall  I  skulk  and  dodge  and  duck  with  my  unseason 
able  apologies  and  vain  modesty,  and  imagine  my  be 
ing  here  impertinent  ?  less  pertinent  than  Epaminon- 
das  or  Homer  being  there  ?  and  that  the  soul  did  not 
know  its  own  needs  ?  Besides,  without  any  reasoning 
on  the  matter,  I  have  no  discontent.  The  good  soul 
nourishes  me  alway,  unlocks  new  magazines  of  pow 
er  and  enjoyment  to  me  every  day.  I  will  not 
meanly  decline  the  immensity  of  good,  because  I  have 
heard  that  it  has  come  to  others  in  another  shape. 

Besides,  why  should  we  be  cowed  by  the  name  of 
Action  ?  'T  is  a  trick  of  the  senses  ,  —  no  more. 
We  know  that  the  ancestor  of  every  action  is  a 
thought.  The  poor  mind  does  not  seem  to  itself  to 
be  any  thing,  unless  it  have  an  outside  badge,  —  some 
Gentoo  diet,  or  Quaker  coat,  or  Calvinistic  prayer- 
meeting,  or  philanthropic  society,  or  a  great  donation, 
or  a  high  office,  or,  any  how,  some  wild  contrasting 
action  to  testify  that  it  is  somewhat.  The  rich  mind 
lies  in  the  sun  and  sleeps,  and  is  Nature.  To  think 
is  to  act. 

Let  us,  if  we  must  have  great  actions,  make  our 
own  so.  All  action  is  of  an  infinite  elasticity,  and  the 
lea^t  admits  of  being  inflated  with  the  celestial  air 
until  it  eclipses  the  sun  and  moon.  Let  us  seek  one 
peace  by  fidelity.  Let  me  do  my  duties.  Why  need 
I  go  gadding  into  the  scenes  and  philosophy  of 
Greek  and  Italian  history,  before  I  have  washed  my 


134  ESSAY  IV. 

own  face,  or  justified  myself  to  my  own  benefactors  ? 
How  dare  I  read  Washington's  campaigns,  when  I 
have  not  answered  the  letters  of  my  own  correspon 
dents  ?  Is  not  that  a  just  objection  to  much  of  our 
reading  ?  It  is  a  pusillanimous  desertion  of  our  work 
to  gaze  after  our  neighbors.  It  is  peeping.  Byron 
says  of  Jack  Bunting, 

"  He  knew  not  what  to  say,  and  so,  he  swore." 

I  may  say  it  of  our  preposterous  use  of  books :  He 
knew  not  what  to  do,  and  so,  he  read.  I  can  think  of 
nothing  to  fill  my  time  with,  and  so,  without  any  con 
straint,  I  find  the  Life  of  Brant.  It  is  a  very  extrava 
gant  compliment  to  pay  to  Brant,  or  to  General  Schuy- 
ler,  or  to  General  Washington.  My  time  should  be 
as  good  as  their  time  :  my  world,  my  facts,  all  my 
net  of  relations  as  good  as  theirs,  or  either  of  theirs. 
Rather  let  me  do  my  work  so  well  that  other  idlers,  if 
they  choose,  may  compare  my  texture  with  the  tex 
ture  of  these  and  find  it  identical  with  the  best. 

This  over-estimate  of  the  possibilities  of  Paul  and 
Pericles,  this  under-estimate  of  our  own,  comes  from 
a  neglect  of  the  fact  of  an  identical  nature.  Bona 
parte  knew  but  one  Merit,  and  rewarded  in  one  and 
the  same  way  the  good  soldier,  the  good  astronomer, 
the  good  poet,  the  good  player.  Thus  he  signified 
his  sense  of  a  great  fact.  The  poet  uses  the  names 
of  Caesar,  of  Tamerlane,  of  Bonduca,  of  Belisarius  ; 
the  painter  uses  the  conventional  story  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  of  Paul,  of  Peter.  He  does  not,  therefore,  de 
fer  to  the  nature  of  these  accidental  men,  of  these 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  135 

stock  heroes.  If  the  poet  write  a  true  drama,  then  he 
is  Csesar,  and  not  the  player  of  Csesar  ;  then  the  self 
same  strain  of  thought,  emotion  as  pure,  wit  as  subtle, 
motions  as  swift,  mounting,  extravagant,  arid  a  heart 
as  great,  self-sufficing,  dauntless,  which  on  the  waves 
of  its  love  and  hope  can  uplift  all  that  is  reckoned 
solid  and  precious  in  the  world,  palaces,  gardens,  mo 
ney,  navies,  kingdoms,  —  marking  its  own  incompar 
able  worth  by  the  slight  it  casts  on  these  gauds  of 
men,  —  these  all  are  his,  and  by  the  power  of  these 
he  rouses  the  nations.  But  the  great  names  cannot 
stead  him,  if  he  have  not  life  himself.  Let  a  man  be 
lieve  in  God,  and  not  in  names  and  places  and  per 
sons.  Let  the  great  soul  incarnated  in  some  woman's 
form,  poor  and  sad  and  single,  in  some  Dolly  or  Joan, 
go  out  to  service,  and  sweep  chambers  and  scour 
floors,  and  its  effulgent  day-beams  cannot  be  muffled  or 
hid,  but  to  sweep  and  scour  will  instantly  appear  su 
preme  and  beautiful  actions,  the  top  and  radiance  of 
human  life,  and  all  people  will  get  mops  and  brooms  ; 
until,  lo,  suddenly  the  great  soul  has  enshrined  itself  in 
some  other  form,  and  done  some  other  deed,  and  that 
is  now  the  flower  and  head  of  all  living  nature. 

We  are  the  photometers,  we  the  irritable  goldleaf 
and  tinfoil  that  measure  the  accumulations  of  the 
subtle  element.  We  know  the  authentic  effects  of 
the  true  fire  through  every  one  of  its  million  dis 
guises. 


LOVE. 


ESSAY    V 


LOVE. 


EVERY  soul  is  a  celestial  Venus  to  every  other  soul. 
The  heart  has  its  sabbaths  and  jubilees,  in  which  the 
world  appears  as  a  hymeneal  feast,  and  all  natural 
sounds  and  the  circle  of  the  seasons  are  erotic  odes 
and  dances.  Love  is  omnipresent  in  nature  as  motive 
and  reward.  Love  is  our  highest  word,  and  the  sy 
nonym  of  God.  Every  promise  of  the  soul  has 
innumerable  fulfilments  :  each  of  its  joys  ripens  into 
a  new  want.  Nature,  uncontainable,  flowing,  fore- 
looking,  in  the  first  sentiment  of  kindness  anticipates 
already  a  benevolence  which  shall  lose  all  particular 
regards  in  its  general  light.  The  introduction  to  this 
felicity  is  in  a  private  and  tender  relation  of  one  to 
one,  which  is  the  enchantment  of  human  life  ;  which, 
like  a  certain  divine  rage  and  enthusiasm,  seizes  on 
man  at  one  period,  and  works  a  revolution  in  his  mind 
and  body  ;  unites  him  to  his  race,  pledges  him  to  the 


140  ESSAY    V. 

domestic  and  civic  relations,  carries  him  with  new 
sympathy  into  nature,  enhances  the  power  of  the 
senses,  opens  the  imagination,  adds  to  his  character 
heroic  and  sacred  attributes,  establishes  marriage,  and 
gives  permanence  to  human  society. 

The  natural  association  of  the  sentiment  of  love 
with  the  heyday  of  the  blood,  seems  to  require  that 
in  order  to  portray  it  in  vivid  tints  which  every  youth 
and  maid  should  confess  to  be  true  to  their  throbbing 
experience,  one  must  not  be  too  old.  The  delicious 
fancies  of  youth  reject  the  least  savor  of  a  mature 
philosophy,  as  chilling  with  age  and  pedantry  their 
purple  bloom.  And,  therefore,  I  know  1  incur  the 
imputation  of  unnecessary  hardness  and  stoicism  from 
those  who  compose  the  Court  and  Parliament  of  Love. 
But  from  these  formidable  censors  I  shall  appeal  to 
my  seniors.  For,  it  is  to  be  considered  that  this  pas 
sion  of  which  we  speak,  though  it  begin  with  the 
young,  yet  forsakes  not  the  old,  or  rather  suffers  no 
one  who  is  truly  its  servant  to  grow  old,  but  makes 
the  aged  participators  of  it,  not  less  than  the  tender 
maiden,  though  in  a  different  and  nobler  sort.  For, 
it  is  a  fire  that  kindling  its  first  embers  in  the  narrow 
nook  of  a  private  bosom,  caught  from  a  wandering 
spark  out  of  another  private  heart,  glows  and  enlarges 
until  it  warms  and  beams  upon  multitudes  of  men  and 
women,  upon  the  universal  heart  of  all,  and  so  lights 
up  the  whole  world  and  all  nature  with  its  generous 
flames.  It  matters  not,  therefore,  whether  we  attempt 
to  describe  the  passion  at  twenty,  at  thirty,  or  at 
eighty  years.  He  who  paints  it  at  the  first  period, 


LOVE.  141 

will  lose  some  of  its  later,  he  who  paints  it  at  the  last, 
some  of  its  earlier  traits.  Only  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
by  patience  and  the  muses'  aid,  we  may  attain  to  that 
inward  view  of  the  law,  which  shall  describe  a  truth 
ever  young,  ever  beautiful,  so  central  that  it  shall 
commend  itself  to  the  eye  at  whatever  angle  beholden. 

And  the  first  condition  is,  that  we  must  leave  a  too 
close  and  lingering  adherence  to  the  actual,  to  facts, 
and  study  the  sentiment  as  it  appeared  in  hope  and 
not  in  history.  For,  each  man  sees  his  own  life  de 
faced  and  disfigured,  as  the  life  of  man  is  not,  to  his 
imagination.  Each  man  sees  over  his  own  experi 
ence  a  certain  slime  of  error,  whilst  that  of  other 
men  looks  fair  and  ideal.  Let  any  man  go  back  to 
those  delicious  relations  which  make  the  beauty  of 
his  life,  which  have  given  him  sincerest  instruction 
and  nourishment,  he  will  shrink  and  shrink.  Alas ! 
I  know  not  why,  but  infinite  compunctions  embitter 
in  mature  life  all  the  remembrances  of  budding  senti 
ment,  and  cover  every  beloved  name.  Every  thing 
is  beautiful  seen  from  the  point  of  the  intellect,  or  as 
truth.  But  all  is  sour,  if  seen  as  experience.  Details 
are  always  melancholy  ;  the  plan  is  seemly  and  no 
ble.  It  is  strange  how  painful  is  the  actual  world,  — 
the  painful  kingdom  of  time  and  place.  There  dwells 
care  and  canker  and  fear.  With  thought,  with  the 
ideal,  is  immortal  hilarity,  the  rose  of  joy.  Round  it 
all  the  muses  sing.  But  with  names  and  persons  and 
the  partial  interests  of  to-day  and  yesterday,  is  grief. 

The  strong  bent  of  nature  is  seen  in  the  proportion 
which  this  topic  of  personal  relations  usurps  in  the 


142  ESSAY    V. 

conversation  of  society.  What  do  we  wish  to  know 
of  any  worthy  person  so  much  as  how  he  has  sped 
in  the  history  of  this  sentiment  ?  What  books  in  the 
circulating  libraries  circulate  ?  How  we  glow  over 
these  novels  of  passion,  when  the  story  is  told  with 
any  spark  of  truth  and  nature  !  And  what  fastens 
attention,  in  the  intercourse  of  life,  like  any  passage 
betraying  affection  between  two  parties  ?  Perhaps  we 
never  saw  them  before,  and  never  shall  meet  them 
again.  But  we  see  them  exchange  a  glance,  or  be 
tray  a  deep  emotion,  and  we  are  no  longer  strangers. 
We  understand  them,  and  take  the  warmest  interest 
in  the  development  of  the  romance.  All  mankind 
love  a  lover.  The  earliest  demonstrations  of  compla 
cency  and  kindness  are  nature's  most  winning  pic 
tures.  It  is  the  dawn  of  civility  and  grace  in  the 
coarse  and  rustic.  The  rude  village  boy  teazes  the 
girls  about  the  school  house  door ;  —  but  to-day  he 
comes  running  into  the  entry,  and  meets  one  fair  child 
arranging  her  satchel :  he  holds  her  books  to  help  her, 
and  instantly  it  seems  to  him  as  if  she  removed  her 
self  from  him  infinitely,  and  was  a  sacred  precinct. 
Among  the  throng  of  girls  he  runs  rudely  enough, 
but  one  alone  distances  him  :  and  these  two  little 
neighbors  that  were  so  close  just  now,  have  learned  to 
respect  each  other's  personality.  Or  who  can  avert  his 
eyes  from  the  engaging,  half-artful,  half-artless  ways 
of  school  girls  who  go  into  the  country  shops  to  buy 
a  skein  of  silk  or  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  talk  half  an 
hour  about  nothing,  with  the  broad-faced,  good-natured 
shop-boy.  In  the  village,  they  are  on  a  perfect  equal- 


LOVE.  143 

ity,  which  love  delights  in,  and  without  any  coquetry 
the  happy,  affectionate  nature  of  woman  flows  out  in 
this  pretty  gossip.  The  girls  may  have  little  beauty, 
yet  plainly  do  they  establish  between  them  and  the 
good  boy  the  most  agreeable,  confiding  relations, 
what  with  their  fun  and  their  earnest,  about  Edgar, 
and  Jonas,  and  Almira,  and  who  was  invited  to  the 
party,  and  who  danced  at  the  dancing  school,  and 
when  the  singing  school  would  begin,  and  other  no 
things  concerning  which  the  parties  cooed.  By-and- 
by  that  boy  wants  a  wife,  and  very  truly  and  heartily 
will  he  know  where  to  find  a  sincere  and  sweet  mate, 
without  any  risk  such  as  Milton  deplores  as  incident  to 
scholars  and  great  men. 

I  have  been  told  that  my  philosophy  is  unsocial,  and, 
that  in  public  discourses,  my  reverence  for  the  intellect 
makes  me  unjustly  cold  to  the  personal  relations.  But 
now  I  almost  shrink  at  the  remembrance  of  such  dispar 
aging  words.  For  persons  are  love's  world,  and  the 
coldest  philosopher  cannot  recount  the  debt  of  the  young 
soul  wandering  here  in  nature  to  the  power  of  love,  with 
out  being  tempted  to  unsay  as  treasonable  to  nature, 
aught  derogatory  to  the  social  instincts.  For,  though  the 
celestial  rapture  falling  out  of  heaven  seizes  only  upon 
those  of  tender  age,  and  although  a  beauty  overpow 
ering  all  analysis  or  comparison,  and  putting  us  quite 
beside  ourselves,  we  can  seldom  see  after  thirty  years, 
yet  the  remembrance  of  these  visions  outlasts  all  other 
remembrances,  and  is  a  wreath  of  flowers  on  the 
oldest  brows.  But  here  is  a  strange  fact ;  it  may 
seem  to  many  men  in  revising  their  experience,  that 


144  ESSAY  V. 

they  have  no  fairer  page  in  their  life's  book  than  the 
delicious  memory  of  some  passages  wherein  affection 
contrived  to  give  a  witchcraft  surpassing  the  deep  at 
traction  of  its  own  truth  to  a  parcel  of  accidental  and 
trivial  circumstances.    In  looking  backward,  they  may 
find  that  several  things  which  were  not  the  charm,  have 
more  reality  to  this  groping  memory  than  the  charm  it 
self  which  embalmed  them.    But  be  our  experience  in 
particulars  what  it  may,  no  man  ever  forgot  the  visita 
tions  of  that  power  to  his  heart  and  brain,  which  crea 
ted  all  things  new  ;  which  was  the  dawn  in  him  of  mu 
sic,  poetry  and  art ;  which  made  the  face  of  nature 
radiant  with  purple  light,  the  morning  and  the  night 
varied  enchantments  ;  when  a  single  tone  of  one  voice 
could  make  the  heart  beat,  and  the  most  trivial  cir 
cumstance  associated  with  one  form,  is  put  in  the  am 
ber  of  memory  :    when  we  became  all  eye  when  one 
was  present,  and  all  memory  when  one  was  gone  ; 
when  the  youth  becomes  a  watcher  of  windows,  and 
studious  of  a  glove,  a  veil,  a  ribbon,  or  the  wheels  of 
a  carriage  ;  when  no  place  is  too  solitary,  and  none 
too  silent   for    him   who  has   richer   company   and 
sweeter  conversation  in  his  new  thoughts,  than  any  old 
friends,  though  best  and  purest,  can  give  him  ;  for,  the 
figures,  the  motions,  the  words  of  the  beloved  object 
are  not  like  other  images  written  in  water,  but,  as  Plu 
tarch  said, "  enamelled  in  fire, "  and  make  the  study  of 
midnight. 

"  Thou  art  not  gone  being  gone,  where  e'er  thou  art, 
Thou  leav'st  in  him  thy  watchful  eyes,  in  him  thy  loving 
heart." 


LOVE.  145 

In  the  noon  and  the  afternoon  of  life,  we  still  throb 
at  the  recollection  of  days  when  happiness  was  not 
happy  enough,  but  must  be  drugged  with  the  relish  of 
pain  and  fear  ;  for  he  touched  the  secret  of  the  mat 
ter,  who  said  of  love, 

"  All  other  pleasures  are  not  worth  its  pains :  " 

and  when  the  day  was  not  long  enough,  but  the  night 
too  must  be  consumed  in  keen  recollections;  when 
the  head  boiled  all  night  on  the  pillow  with  the  gen 
erous  deed  it  resolved  on  ;  when  the  moonlight  was 
a  pleasing  fever,  and  the  stars  were  letters,  and  the 
flowers  ciphers,  and  the  air  was  coined  into  song ; 
when  all  business  seemed  an  impertinence,  and  all  the 
men  and  women  running  to  and  fro  in  the  streets, 
mere  pictures. 

The  passion  re-makes  the  world  for  the  youth.  It 
makes  all  things  alive  and  significant.  Nature  grows 
conscious.  Every  bird  on  the  boughs  of  the  tree 
sings  now  to  his  heart  and  soul.  Almost  the  notes 
are  articulate.  The  clouds  have  faces,  as  he  looks  on 
them.  The  trees  of  the  forest,  the  waving  grass  and 
the  peeping  flowers  have  grown  intelligent ;  and  al 
most  he  fears  to  trust  them  with  the  secret  which  they 
seem  to  invite.  Yet  nature  soothes  and  sympathizes. 
In  the  green  solitude  he  finds  a  dearer  home  than  with 
men. 

"  Fountain  heads  and  pathless  groves, 
Places  which  pale  passion  loves, 
Moonlight  walks,  when  all  the  fowls 
Are  safely  housed,  save  bats  and  owls, 
A  midnight  bell,  a  passing  groan, 
These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon." 

7 


146  ESSAY  V. 

Behold  there  in  the  wood  the  fine  madman  !  He 
is  a  palace  of  sweet  sounds  and  sights ;  he  dilates ; 
he  is  twice  a  man  ;  he  walks  with  arms  akimbo  :  he 
soliloquizes ;  he  accosts  the  grass  and  the  trees  ;  he 
feels  the  blood  of  the  violet,  the  clover  and  the  lily  in 
his  veins  ;  and  he  talks  with  the  brook  that  wets  his 
foot. 

The  causes  that  have  sharpened  his  perceptions  of 
natural  beauty,  have  made  him  love  music  and  verse. 
It  is  a  fact  often  observed,  that  men  have  written  good 
verses  under  the  inspiration  of  passion,  who  cannot 
write  well  under  any  other  circumstances. 

The  like  force  has  the  passion  over  all  his  nature. 
It  expands  the  sentiment ;  it  makes  the  clown  gentle, 
and  gives  the  coward  heart.  Into  the  most  pitiful  and 
abject  it  will  infuse  a  heart  and  courage  to  defy  the 
world,  so  only  it  have  the  countenance  of  the  beloved 
object.  In  giving  him  to  another,  it  still  more  gives 
him  to  himself.  He  is  a  new  man,  with  new  percep 
tions,  new  and  keener  purposes,  and  a  religious  so 
lemnity  of  character  and  aims.  He  does  not  longer 
appertain  to  his  family  and  society.  He  is  somewhat. 
He  is  a  person.  He  is  a  soul. 

And  here  let  us  examine  a  little  nearer  the  nature 
of  that  influence  which  is  thus  potent  over  the  human 
youth.  Let  us  approach  and  admire  Beauty,  whose 
revelation  to  man  we  now  celebrate,  —  beauty,  wel 
come  as  the  sun  wherever  it  pleases  to  shine,  which 
pleases  everybody  with  it  and  with  themselves.  Won 
derful  is  its  charm.  It  seems  sufficient  to  itself.  The 
lover  cannot  paint  his  maiden  to  his  fancy  poor  and 


LOVE.  147 

solitary.  Like  a  tree  in  flower,  so  much  soft,  budding, 
informing  loveliness  is  society  for  itself,  and  she  teaches 
his  eye  why  Beauty  was  ever  painted  with  Loves 
and  Graces  attending  her  steps.  Her  existence  makes 
the  world  rich.  Though  she  extrudes  all  other  per 
sons  from  his  attention  as  cheap  and  unworthy,  yet 
she  indemnifies  him  by  carrying  out  her  own  being 
into  somewhat  impersonal,  large,  mundane,  so  that 
the  maiden  stands  to  him  for  a  representative  of  all 
select  things  and  virtues.  For  that  reason  the  lover 
sees  never  personal  resemblances  in  his  mistress  to 
her  kindred  or  to  others.  His  friends  find  in  her  a 
likeness  to  her  mother,  or  her  sisters,  or  to  persons  not 
of  her  blood.  The  lover  sees  no  resemblance  except 
to  summer  evenings  and  diamond  mornings,  to  rain 
bows  and  the  song  of  birds. 

Beauty  is  ever  that  divine  thing  the  ancients  esteem 
ed  it.  It  is,  they  said,  the  flowering  of  virtue.  Who 
can  analyze  the  nameless  charm  which  glances  from 
one  and  another  face  and  form  ?  We  are  touched 
with  emotions  of  tenderness  and  complacency,  but 
we  cannot  find  whereat  this  dainty  emotion,  this  wan 
dering  gleam  point.  It  is  destroyed  for  the  imagina 
tion  by  any  attempt  to  refer  it  to  organization.  Nor 
does  it  point  to  any  relations  of  friendship  or  love  that 
society  knows  and  has,  but,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  a 
quite  other  and  unattainable  sphere,  to  relations  of 
transcendant  delicacy  and  sweetness,  a  true  faerie 
land  ;  to  what  roses  and  violets  hint  and  foreshow.  We 
cannot  get  at  beauty.  Its  nature  is  like  opaline  doves'- 
neck  lustres,  hovering  and  evanescent.  Herein  it  re- 


148  ESSAY    V. 

sembles  the  most  excellent  things,  which  all  have  this 
rainbow  character,  defying  all  attempts  at  appropria 
tion  and  use.  What  else  did  Jean  Paul  Richter  sig 
nify,  when  he  said  to  music,  "  Away  !  away  !  thou 
speakest  to  me  of  things  which  in  all  my  endless  life 
I  have  found  not,  and  shall  not  find."  The  same  fact 
may  be  observed  in  every  work  of  the  plastic  arts. 
The  statue  is  then  beautiful,  when  it  begins  to  be  in 
comprehensible,  when  it  is  passing  out  of  criticism, 
and  can  no  longer  be  defined  by  compass  and  meas 
uring  wand,  but  demands  an  active  imagination  to  go 
with  it,  and  to  say  what  it  is  in  the  act  of  doing.  The 
god  or  hero  of  the  sculptor  is  always  represented  in  a 
transition  from  that  which  is  representable  to  the 
senses,  to  that  which  is  not.  Then  first  it  ceases  to 
be  a  stone.  The  same  remark  holds  of  painting. 
And  of  poetry,  the  success  is  not  attained  when  it  lulls 
and  satisfies,  but  when  it  astonishes  and  fires  us  with 
new  endeavors  after  the  unattainable.  Concerning  it, 
Landor  inquires  "  whether  it  is  not  to  be  referred  to 
some  purer  state  of  sensation  and  existence." 

So  must  it  be  with  personal  beauty,  which  love  wor 
ships.  Then  first  is  it  charming  and  itself,  when  it 
dissatisfies  us  with  any  end  ;  when  it  becomes  a  story 
without  an  end  ;  when  it  suggests  gleams  and  visions, 
and  not  earthly  satisfactions ;  when  it  seems 

"  too  bright  and  good, 
For  human  nature's  daily  food  ;  " 

when  it  makes  the  beholder  feel  his  unworthiness ; 
when  he  cannot  feel  his  right  to  it,  though  he  were 


LOVE.  149 

Caesar ;  he  cannot  feel  more  right  to  it,  than  to  the  fir 
mament  and  the  splendors  of  a  sunset. 

Hence  arose  the  saying,  "  If  I  love  you,  what  is 
that  to  you  ?  "  We  say  so,  because  we  feel  that 
what  we  love,  is  not  in  your  will,  but  above  it.  It  is 
the  radiance  of  you  and  not  you.  It  is  that  which 
you  know  not  in  yourself,  and  can  never  know. 

This  agrees  well  with  that  high  philosophy  of 
Beauty  which  the  ancient  writers  delighted  in  ;  for  they 
said,  that  the  soul  of  man,  embodied  here  on  earth, 
went  roaming  up  and  down  in  quest  of  that  other 
world  of  its  own,  out  of  which  it  came  into  this,  but 
was  soon  stupefied  by  the  light  of  the  natural  sun,  and 
unable  to  see  any  other  objects  than  those  of  this 
world,  which  are  but  shadows  of  real  things.  There 
fore,  the  Deity  sends  the  glory  of  youth  before  the 
soul,  that  it  may  avail  itself  of  beautiful  bodies  as  aids 
to  its  recollection  of  the  celestial  good  and  fair  ;  and 
the  man  beholding  such  a  person  in  the  female  sex, 
runs  to  her,  and  finds  the  highest  joy  in  contem 
plating  the  form,  movement,  and  intelligence  of  this 
person,  because  it  suggests  to  him  the  presence  of 
that  which  indeed  is  within  the  beauty,  and  the  cause 
of  the  beauty. 

If,  however,  from  too  much  conversing  with  material 
objects,  the  soul  was  gross,  and  misplaced  its  satisfaction 
in  the  body,  it  reaped  nothing  but  sorrow  ;  body  being 
unable  to  fulfil  the  promise  which  beauty  holds  out; 
but  if,  accepting  the  hint  of  these  visions  and  sugges 
tions  which  beauty  makes  to  his  mind,  the  soul  passes 
through  the  body,  and  falls  to  admire  strokes  of  char- 


150  ESSAY    V. 

acter,  and  the  lovers  contemplate  one  another  in  their 
discourses  and  their  actions,  then,  they  pass  to  the 
true  palace  of  Beauty,  more  and  more  inflame  their 
love  of  it,  and  by  this  love  extinguishing  the  base 
affection,  as  the  sun  puts  out  the  fire  by  shining  on 
the  hearth,  they  become  pure  and  hallowed.  By  con 
versation  with  that  which  is  in  itself  excellent,  mag 
nanimous,  lowly  and  just,  the  lover  comes  to  a  warmer 
love  of  these  nobilities,  and  a  quicker  apprehension 
of  them.  Then,  he  passes  from  loving  them  in  one, 
to  loving  them  in  all,  and  so  is  the  one  beautiful  soul 
only  the  door  through  which  he  enters  to  the  society 
of  all  true  and  pure  souls.  In  the  particular  society 
of  his  mate,  he  attains  a  clearer  sight  of  any  spot, 
any  taint,  which  her  beauty  has  contracted  from  this 
world,  and  is  able  to  point  it  out,  and  this  with  mutual 
joy  that  they  are  now  able  without  offence  to  indicate 
blemishes  and  hindrances  in  each  other,  and  give  to 
each  all  help  and  comfort  in  curing  the  same.  And, 
beholding  in  many  souls  the  traits  of  the  divine 
beauty,  and  separating  in  each  soul  that  which  is 
divine  from  the  taint  which  they  have  contracted  in 
the  world,  the  lover  ascends  ever  to  the  highest  beauty, 
to  the  love  and  knowledge  of  the  Divinity,  by  steps 
on  this  ladder  of  created  souls. 

Somewhat  like  this  have  the  truly  wise  told  us  of 
love  in  all  ages.  The  doctrine  is  not  old,  nor  is  it 
new.  If  Plato,  Plutarch  and  Apuleius  taught  it,  so 
have  Petrarch,  Angelo,  and  Milton.  It  awaits  a 
truer  unfolding  in  opposition  and  rebuke  to  that  sub 
terranean  prudence  which  presides  at  marriages  with 


LOVE.  151 

words  that  take  hold  of  the  upper  world,  whilst  one 
eye  is  eternally  boring  down  into  the  cellar,  so  that 
its  gravest  discourse  has  ever  a  slight  savor  of  hams 
and  powdering-tubs.  Worst,  when  the  snout  of  this 
sensualism  intrudes  into  the  education  of  young  wo 
men,  and  withers  the  hope  and  affection  of  human 
nature,  by  teaching,  that  marriage  signifies  nothing  but 
a  housewife's  thrift,  and  that  woman's  life  has  no 
other  aim. 

But  this  dream  of  love,  though  beautiful,  is  only 
one  scene  in  our  play.  In  the  procession  of  the  soul 
from  within  outward,  it  enlarges  its  circles  ever,  like 
the  pebble  thrown  into  the  pond,  or  the  light  proceed 
ing  from  an  orb.  The  rays  of  the  soul  alight  first  on 
things  nearest,  on  every  utensil  and  toy,  on  nurses 
and  domestics,  on  the  house  and  yard  and  passengers, 
on  the  circle  of  household  acquaintance,  on  politics, 
and  geography,  and  history.  But  by  the  necessity  of 
our  constitution,  things  are  ever  grouping  themselves 
according  to  higher  or  more  interior  laws.  Neigh 
borhood,  size,  numbers,  habits,  persons,  lose  by  de 
grees  their  power  over  us.  Cause  and  effect,  real 
affinities,  the  longing  for  harmony  between  the  soul 
and  the  circumstance,  the  high  progressive  idealizing 
instinct,  these  predominate  later,  and  ever  the  step 
backward  from  the  higher  to  the  lower  relations  is 
impossible.  Thus  even  love,  which  is  the  deification 
of  persons,  must  become  more  impersonal  every  day. 
Of  this  at  first  it  gives  no  hint.  Little  think  the  youth 
and  maiden  who  are  glancing  at  each  other  across 
crowded  rooms,  with  eyes  so  full  of  mutual  intelli- 


152  ESSAY    V. 

gence,  —  of  the  precious  fruit  long  hereafter  to  pro 
ceed  from  this  new,  quite  external  stimulus.  The 
work  of  vegetation  begins  first  in  the  irritability  of 
the  bark  and  leaf-buds.  From  exchanging  glances, 
they  advance  to  acts  of  courtesy,  of  gallantry,  then 
to  fiery  passion,  to  plighting  troth  and  marriage. 
Passion  beholds  its  object  as  a  perfect  unit.  The  soul 
is  wholly  embodied,  and  the  body  is  wholly  ensouled. 

"  Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheeks,  and  so  distinctly  wrought, 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought." 

Romeo,  if  dead,  should  be  cut  up  into  little  stars  to 
make  the  heavens  fine.  Life,  with  this  pair,  has  no 
other  aim,  asks  no  more  than  Juliet, —  than  Romeo. 
Night,  day,  studies,  talents,  kingdoms,  religion,  are  all 
contained  in  this  form  full  of  soul,  in  this  soul  which 
is  all  form.  The  lovers  delight  in  endearments,  in 
avowals  of  love,  in  comparisons  of  their  regards. 
When  alone,  they  solace  themselves  with  the  remem 
bered  image  of  the  other.  Does  that  other  see  the 
same  star ;  the  same  melting  cloud,  read  the  same 
book,  feel  the  same  emotion  that  now  delight  me  ? 
They  try  and  weigh  their  affection,  and  adding  up  all 
costly  advantages,  friends,  opportunities,  properties, 
exult  in  discovering  that  willingly,  joyfully,  they 
would  give  all  as  a  ransom  for  the  beautiful,  the  be 
loved  head,  not  one  hair  of  which  shall  be  harmed. 
But  the  lot  of  humanity  is  on  these  children.  Dan 
ger,  sorrow,  and  pain  arrive  to  them,  as  to  all.  Love 
prays.  It  makes  covenants  with  Eternal  Power,  in 
behalf  of  this  dear  mate,  The  union  which  is  thus 


LOVE.  153 

effected,  and  which  adds  a  new  value  to  every  atom 
in  nature,  for  it  transmutes  every  thread  throughout 
the  whole  web  of  relation  into  a  golden  ray,  and  bathes 
the  soul  in  a  new  and  sweeter  element,  is  yet  a  tem 
porary  state.  Not  always  can  flowers,  pearls,  poetry, 
protestations,  nor  even  home  in  another  heart,  content 
the  awful  soul  that  dwells  in  clay.  It  arouses  itself 
at  last  from  these  endearments,  as  toys,  and  puts  on 
the  harness,  and  aspires  to  vast  and  universal  aims. 
The  soul  which  is  in  the  soul  of  each,  craving  for  a 
perfect  beatitude,  detects  incongruities,  defects,  and 
disproportion  in  the  behavior  of  the  other.  Hence 
arises  surprise,  expostulation,  and  pain.  Yet  that 
which  drew  them  to  each  other  was  signs  of  loveli 
ness,  signs  of  virtue :  and  these  virtues  are  there, 
however  eclipsed.  They  appear  and  reappear,  and 
continue  to  attract ;  but  the  regard  changes,  quits  the 
sign,  and  attaches  to  the  substance.  This  repairs  the 
wounded  affection.  Meantime,  as  life  wears  on,  it 
proves  a  game  of  permutation  and  combination  of  ail 
possible  positions  of  the  parties,  to  extort  all  the  re 
sources  of  each,  and  acquaint  each  with  the  whole 
strength  and  weakness  of  the  other.  For,  it  is  the 
nature  and  end  of  this  relation,  that  they  should  rep 
resent  the  human  race  to  each  other.  All  that  is  in 
the  world  which  is  or  ought  to  be  known,  is  cun 
ningly  wrought  into  the  texture  of  man,  of  woman, 

"  The  person  love  does  to  us  fit, 
Like  manna,  has  the  taste  of  all  in  it." 

The  world  rolls :  the  circumstances  vary,  every 
hour.     All  the  angels  that  inhabit  this  temple  of  the 

7* 


154  ESSAY  V. 

body  appear  at  the  windows,  and  all  the  gnomes  and 
vices  also.  By  all  the  virtues,  they  are  united.  If 
there  be  virtue,  all  the  vices  are  known  as  such  ;  they 
confess  and  flee.  Their  once  flaming  regard  is 
sobered  by  time  in  either  breast,  and  losing  in  violence 
what  it  gains  in  extent,  it  becomes  a  thorough  good 
understanding.  They  resign  each  other,  without  com 
plaint,  to  the  good  offices  which  man  and  woman  are 
severally  appointed  to  discharge  in  time,  and  exchange 
the  passion  which  once  could  not  lose  sight  of  its 
object,  for  a  cheerful,  disengaged  furtherance,  whether 
present  or  absent,  of  each  other's  designs.  At  last 
they  discover  that  all  which  at  first  drew  them  to 
gether,  —  those  once  sacred  features,  that  magical 
play  of  charms,  —  was  deciduous,  had  a  prospec 
tive  end,  like  the  scaffolding  by  which  the  house  was 
built ;  and  the  purification  of  the  intellect  and  the 
heart,  from  year  to  year,  is  the  real  marriage,  foreseen 
and  prepared  from  the  first,  and  wholly  above  their 
consciousness.  Looking  at  these  aims  with  which 
two  persons,  a  man  and  a  woman,  so  variously  and 
correlatively  gifted,  are  shut  up  in  one  house  to  spend 
in  the  nuptial  society  forty  or  fifty  years,  I  do  not 
wonder  at  the  emphasis  with  which  the  heart  proph 
esies  this  crisis  from  early  infancy,  at  the  profuse 
beauty  with  which  the  instincts  deck  the  nuptial  bower, 
and  nature  and  intellect  and  art  emulate  each  other 
in  the  gifts  and  the  melody  they  bring  to  the  epitha- 
lamium. 

Thus  are  we  put  in  training  for  a  love  which  knows 
not  sex,  nor  person,  nor  partiality,  but  which  seeketh 


LOVE.  155 

virtue  and  wisdom  every  where,  to  the  end  of  increas 
ing  virtue  and  wisdom.  We  are  by  nature  observers, 
and  thereby  learners.  That  is  our  permanent  state. 
But  we  are  often  made  to  feel  that  our  affections  are 
but  tents  of  a  night.  Though  slowly  and  with  pain, 
the  objects  of  the  affections  change,  as  the  objects  of 
thought  do.  There  are  moments  when  the  affections 
rule  and  absorb  the  man,  and  make  his  happiness 
dependent  on  a  person  or  persons.  But  in  health  the 
mind  is  presently  seen  again,  —  its  overarching  vault, 
bright  with  galaxies  of  immutable  lights,  and  the  warm 
loves  and  fears  that  swept  over  us  as  clouds,  must 
lose  their  finite  character,  and  blend  with  God,  to  at 
tain  their  own  perfection.  But  we  need  not  fear  that 
we  can  lose  any  thing  by  the  progress  of  the  soul. 
The  soul  may  be  trusted  to  the  end.  That  which  is 
so  beautiful  and  attractive  as  these  relations,  must  be 
succeeded  and  supplanted  only  by  what  is  more  beau 
tiful,  and  so  on  for  ever. 


FRIENDSHIP. 


ESSAY    VI. 


FRIENDSHIP 


WE  have  a  great  deal  more  kindness  than  is  ever 
spoken.  Maugre  all  the  selfishness  that  chills  like 
east  winds  the  world,  the  whole  human  family  is 
bathed  with  an  element  of  love  like  a  fine  ether. 
How  many  persons  we  meet  in  houses,  whom  we 
scarcely  speak  to,  whom  yet  we  honor,  and  who  honor 
us !  How  many  we  see  in  the  street,  or  sit  with  in 
church,  whom,  though  silently,  we  warmly  rejoice  to 
be  with  !  Read  the  language  of  these  wandering 
eye-beams.  The  heart  knoweth. 

The  effect  of  the  indulgence  of  this  human  affec 
tion  is  a  certain  cordial  exhilaration.  In  poetry,  and 
in  common  speech,  the  emotions  of  benevolence  and 
complacency  which  are  felt  towards  others,  are 
likened  to  the  material  effects  of  fire  ;  so  swift,  or 
much  more  swift,  more  active,  more  cheering  are 
these  fine  inward  irradiations.  From  the  highest 


160  ESSAY    VI. 

degree  of  passionate  love,  to  the  lowest  degree  of 
good  will,  they  make  the  sweetness  of  life. 

Our  intellectual  and  active  powers  increase  with 
our  affection.  The  scholar  sits  down  to  write,  and  all 
his  years  of  meditation  do  not  furnish  him  with  one 
good  thought  or  happy  expression  ;  but  it  is  necessary 
to  write  a  letter  to  a  friend,  —  and,  forthwith,  troops  of 
gentle  thoughts  invest  themselves,  on  every  hand,  with 
chosen  words.  See  in  any  house  where  virtue  and 
self-respect  abide,  the  palpitation  which  the  approach 
of  a  stranger  causes.  A  commended  stranger  is  ex 
pected  and  announced,  and  an  uneasiness  betwixt 
pleasure  and  pain  invades  all  the  hearts  of  a  house 
hold.  His  arrival  almost  brings  fear  to  the  good 
hearts  that  would  welcome  him.  The  house  is  dusted, 
all  things  fly  into  their  places,  the  old  coat  is  ex 
changed  for  the  new,  and  they  must  get  up  a  dinner  if 
they  can.  Of  a  commended  stranger,  only  the  good 
report  is  told  by  others,  only  the  good  and  new  is 
heard  by  us.  He  stands  to  us  for  humanity.  He  is, 
what  we  wish.  Having  imagined  and  invested  him, 
we  ask  how  we  should  stand  related  in  conversation 
and  action  with  such  a  man,  and  are  uneasy  with 
fear.  The  same  idea  exalts  conversation  with  him. 
We  talk  better  than  we  are  wont.  We  have  the 
nimblest  fancy,  a  richer  memory,  and  our  dumb 
devil  has  taken  leave  for  the  time.  For  long  hours 
we  can  continue  a  series  of  sincere,  graceful,  rich 
communications,  drawn  from  the  oldest,  secretest  ex 
perience,  so  that  they  who  sit  by,  of  our  own  kins 
folk  and  acquaintance,  shall  feel  a  lively  surprise  at 


FRIENDSHIP.  161 

our  unusual  powers.  But  as  soon  as  the  stranger  be 
gins  to  intrude  his  partialities,  his  definitions,  his  de 
fects,  into  the  conversation,  it  is  all  over.  He  has 
heard  the  first,  the  last  and  best,  he  will  ever  hear 
from  us.  He  is  no  stranger  now.  Vulgarity,  igno 
rance,  misapprehension,  are  old  acquaintances.  Now, 
when  he  comes,  he  may  get  the  order,  the  dress,  and 
the  dinner,  —  but  the  throbbing  of  the  heart,  and  the 
communications  of  the  soul,  no  more. 

Pleasant  are  these  jets  of  affection  which  relume 
a  young  world  for  me  again.  Delicious  is  a  just  and 
firm  encounter  of  two,  in  a  thought,  in  a  feeling. 
How  beautiful,  on  their  approach  to  this  beating  heart, 
the  steps  and  forms  of  the  gifted  and  the  true  !  The 
moment  we  indulge  our  affections,  the  earth  is  meta 
morphosed  :  there  is  no  winter,  and  no  night :  all 
tragedies,  all  ennuis  vanish;  —  all  duties  even;  no 
thing  fills  the  proceeding  eternity  but  the  forms  all 
radiant  of  beloved  persons.  Let  the  soul  be  assured 
that  somewhere  in  the  universe  it  should  rejoin  its 
friend,  and  it  would  be  content  and  cheerful  alone  for 
a  thousand  years. 

I  awoke  this  morning  with  devout  thanksgiving  for 
my  friends,  the  old  and  the  new.  Shall  I  not  call 
God,  the  Beautiful,  who  daily  showeth  himself  so  to 
me  in  his  gifts  ?  I  chide  society,  I  embrace  solitude, 
and  yet  I  am  not  so  ungrateful  as  not  to  see  the  wise, 
the  lovely,  and  the  noble-minded,  as  from  time  to 
time  they  pass  my  gate.  Who  hears  me,  who  under 
stands  me,  becomes  mine,  —  a  possession  for  all  time. 
Nor  is  nature  so  poor,  but  she  gives  me  this  joy  seve- 


162  ESSAY    VI. 

ral  times,  and  thus  we  weave  social  threads  of  our 
own,  a  new  web  of  relations ;  and,  as  many  thoughts 
in  succession  substantiate  themselves,  we  shall  by-and- 
by  stand  in  a  new  world  of  our  own  creation,  and  no 
longer  strangers  and  pilgrims  in  a  traditionary  globe. 
My  friends  have  come  to  me  unsought.  The  great 
God  gave  them  to  me.  By  oldest  right,  by  the  divine 
affinity  of  virtue  with  itself,  I  find  them,  or  rather, 
not  I,  but  the  Deity  in  me  and  in  them,  both  deride 
and  cancel  the  thick  walls  of  individual  character,  re 
lation,  age,  sex  and  circumstance,  at  which  he  usually 
connives,  and  now  makes  many  one.  High  thanks  I 
owe  you,  excellent,  lovers,  who  carry  out  the  world 
for  me  to  new  and  noble  depths,  and  enlarge  the 
meaning  of  all  my  thoughts.  These  are  not  stark 
and  stiffened  persons,  but  the  new-born  poetry  of 
God,  —  poetry  without  stop, —  hymn,  ode,  and  epic, 
poetry  still  flowing,  and  not  yet  caked  in  dead  books 
with  annotation  and  grammar,  but  Apollo  and  the 
Muses  chanting  still.  Will  these  too  separate  them 
selves  from  me  again,  or  some  of  them  ?  I  know 
not,  but  I  fear  it  not ;  for  my  relation  to  them  is  so 
pure,  that  we  hold  by  simple  affinity,  and  the  Genius 
of  my  life  being  thus  social,  the  same  affinity  will 
exert  its  energy  on  whomsoever  is  as  noble  as  these 
men  and  women,  wherever  I  may  be. 

I  confess  to  an  extreme  tenderness  of  nature  on 
this  point.  It  is  almost  dangerous  to  me  to  "  crush 
the  sweet  poison  of  misused  wine  "  of  the  affections. 
A  new  person  is  to  me  always  a  great  event,  and 
hinders  me  from  sleep.  I  have  had  such  fine  fancies 


FRIENDSHIP.  163 

lately  about  two  or  three  persons,  as  have  given  me 
delicious  hours  ;  but  the  joy  ends  in  the  day  :  it 
yields  no  fruit.  Thought  is  not  born  of  it ;  my  action 
is  very  little  modified.  I  must  feel  pride  in  my 
friend's  accomplishments  as  if  they  were  mine,  — 
wild,  delicate,  throbbing  property  in  his  virtues.  I 
feel  as  warmly  when  he  is  praised,  as  the  lover  when 
he  hears  applause  of  his  engaged  maiden.  We  over 
estimate  the  conscience  of  our  friend.  His  goodness 
seems  better  than  our  goodness,  his  nature  finer,  his 
temptations  less.  Every  thing  that  is  his,  his  name, 
his  form,  his  dress,  books,  and  instruments,  fancy  en 
hances.  Our  own  thought  sounds  new  and  larger 
from  his  mouth. 

Yet  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart  are  not 
without  their  analogy  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  love. 
Friendship,  like  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  is  too 
good  to  be  believed.  The  lover,  beholding  his  maid 
en,  half  knows  that  she  is  not  verily  that  which  he 
worships  ;  and  in  the  golden  hour  of  friendship,  we 
are  surprised  with  shades  of  suspicion  and  unbelief. 
We  doubt  that  we  bestow  on  our  hero  the  virtues  in 
which  he  shines,  and  afterwards  worship  the  form  to 
which  we  have  ascribed  this  divine  inhabitation.  In 
strictness,  the  soul  does  not  respect  men  as  it  respects 
itself.  In  strict  science,  all  persons  underlie  the  same 
condition  of  an  infinite  remoteness.  Shall  we  fear  to 
cool  our  love  by  facing  the  fact,  by  mining  for  the  me 
taphysical  foundation  of  this  Elysian  temple  ?  Shall 
I  not  be  as  real  as  the  things  I  see  ?  If  I  am,  I  shall 
not  fear  to  know  them  for  what  they  are.  Their  es- 


164  ESSAY    VI. 

sence  is  not  less  beautiful  than  their  appearance, 
though  it  needs  finer  organs  for  its  apprehension.  The 
root  of  the  plant  is  not  unsightly  to  science,  though 
for  chaplets  and  festoons  we  cut  the  stem  short.  And 
I  must  hazard  the  production  of  the  bald  fact  amidst 
these  pleasing  reveries,  though  it  should  prove  an 
Egyptian  skull  at  our  banquet.  A  man  who  stands 
united  with  his  thought,  conceives  magnificently  of 
himself.  He  is  conscious  of  a  universal  success,  even 
though  bought  by  uniform  particular  failures.  No 
advantages,  no  powers,  no  gold  or  force  can  be  any 
match  for  him.  I  cannot  choose  but  rely  on  my  own 
poverty,  more  than  on  your  wealth.  I  cannot  make 
your  consciousness  tantamount  to  mine.  Only  the 
star  dazzles  ;  the  planet  has  a  faint,  moon-like  ray.  I 
hear  what  you  say  of  the  admirable  parts  and  tried 
temper  of  the  party  you  praise,  but  I  see  well  that  for 
all  his  purple  cloaks  I  shall  not  like  him,  unless  he  is 
at  last  a  poor  Greek  like  me.  I  cannot  deny  it,  O 
friend,  that  the  vast  shadow  of  the  Phenomenal  in 
cludes  thee,  also,  in  its  pied  and  painted  immensity,  — 
thee,  also,  compared  with  whom  all  else  is  shadow. 
Thou  art  not  Being,  as  Truth  is,  as  Justice  is,  —  thou 
art  not  my  soul,  but  a  picture  and  effigy  of  that.  Thou 
hast  come  to  me  lately,  and  already  thou  art  seizing 
thy  hat  and  cloak.  Is  it  not  that  the  soul  puts  forth 
friends,  as  the  tree  puts  forth  leaves,  and  presently, 
by  the  germination  of  new  buds,  extrudes  the  old 
leaf?  The  law  of  nature  is  alternation  forevermore. 
Each  electrical  state  superinduces  the  opposite.  The 
soul  environs  itself  with  friends,  that  it  may  enter  into 


FRIENDSHIP.  165 

a  grander  self-acquaintance  or  solitude  ;  and  it  goes 
alone,  for  a  season,  that  it  may  exalt  its  conversation 
or  society.  This  method  betrays  itself  along  the 
whole  history  of  our  personal  relations.  Ever  the  in 
stinct  of  affection  revives  the  hope  of  union  with  our 
mates,  and  ever  the  returning  sense  of  insulation  re 
calls  us  from  the  chase.  Thus  every  man  passes  his 
life  in  the  search  after  friendship,  and  if  he  should  re 
cord  his  true  sentiment,  he  might  write  a  letter  like 
this,  to  each  new  candidate  for  his  love. 

DEAR  FRIEND, 

If  I  was  sure  of  thee,  sure  of 
thy  capacity,  sure  to  match  my  mood  with  thine,  I 
should  never  think  again  of  trifles,  in  relation  to  thy 
comings  and  goings.  I  am  not  very  wise  :  my  moods 
are  quite  attainable  :  and  I  respect  thy  genius  :  it  is  to 
me  as  yet  unfathomed  ;  yet  dare  I  not  presume  in 
thee  a  perfect  intelligence  of  me,  and  so  thou  art  to 
me  a  delicious  torment.  Thine  ever,  or  never. 

Yet  these  uneasy  pleasures  and  fine  pains  are  for 
curiosity,  and  not  for  life.  They  are  not  to  be  in 
dulged.  This  is  to  weave  cobweb,  and  not  cloth. 
Our  friendships  hurry  to  short  and  poor  conclusions, 
because  we  have  made  them  a  texture  of  wine  and 
dreams,  instead  of  the  tough  fibre  of  the  human  heart. 
The  laws  of  friendship  are  great,  austere,  and  eter 
nal,  of  one  web  with  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  mo 
rals.  But  we  have  aimed  at  a  swift  and  petty  benefit, 
to  suck  a  sudden  sweetness.  We  snatch  at  the  slow- 


166  ESSAY   VI. 

est  fruit  in  the  whole  garden  of  God,  which  many 
summers  and  many  winters  must  ripen.  We  seek 
our  friend  not  sacredly,  but  with  an  adulterate  pas 
sion  which  would  appropriate  him  to  ourselves.  In 
vain.  We  are  armed  all  over  with  subtle  antago 
nisms,  which,  as  soon  as  we  meet,  begin  to  play,  and 
translate  all  poetry  into  stale  prose.  Almost  all  peo 
ple  descend  to  meet.  All  association  must  be  a  com 
promise,  and,  what  is  worst,  the  very  flower  and 
aroma  of  the  flower  of  each  of  the  beautiful  natures 
disappears  as  they  approach  each  other.  What  a  per 
petual  disappointment  is  actual  society,  even  of  the 
virtuous  and  gifted !  After  interviews  have  been 
compassed  with  long  foresight,  we  must  be  tormented 
presently  by  baffled  blows,  by  sudden,  unseasonable 
apathies,  by  epilepsies  of  wit  and  of  animal  spirits, 
in  the  hey-day  of  friendship  and  thought.  Our  facul 
ties  do  not  play  us  true,  and  both  parties  are  relieved 
by  solitude. 

I  ought  to  be  equal  to  every  relation.  It  makes  no 
difference  how  many  friends  I  have,  and  what  content 
I  can  find  in  conversing  with  each,  if  there  be  one  to 
whom  I  am  not  equal.  If  I  have  shrunk  unequal  from 
one  contest,  instantly  the  joy  I  find  in  all  the  rest  be 
comes  mean  and  cowardly.  I  should  hate  myself,  if 
then  I  made  my  other  friends  my  asylum. 

"  The  valiant  warrior  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  hundred  victories,  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honor  razed  quite, 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled." 

Our  impatience  is  thus  sharply  rebuked.     Bashful- 


FRIENDSHIP.  167 

ness  and  apathy  are  a  tough  husk  in  which  a  delicate 
organization  is  protected  from  premature  ripening. 
It  would  be  lost  if  it  knew  itself  before  any  of  the 
best  souls  were  yet  ripe  enough  to  know  and  own 
it.  Respect  the  naturlangsamkeit  which  hardens  the 
ruby  in  a  million  years,  and  works  in  duration,  in 
which  Alps  and  Andes  come  and  go  as  rainbows. 
The  good  spirit  of  our  life  has  no  heaven  which  is  the 
price  of  rashness.  Love,  which  is  the  essence  of 
God,  is  not  for  levity,  but  for  the  total  worth  of  man. 
Let  us  not  have  this  childish  luxury  in  our  regards  ; 
but  the  austerest  worth  ;  let  us  approach  our  friend 
with  an  audacious  trust  in  the  truth  of  his  heart,  in 
the  breadth,  impossible  to  be  overturned,  of  his  foun 
dations. 

The  attractions  of  this  subject  are  not  to  be  resisted, 
and  I  leave,  for  the  time,  all  account  of  subordinate  so 
cial  benefit,  to  speak  of  that  select  and  sacred  relation 
which  is  a  kind  of  absolute,  and  which  even  leaves  the 
language  of  love  suspicious  and  common,  so  much  is 
this  purer,  and  nothing  is  so  much  divine. 

I  do  not  wish  to  treat  friendships  daintily,  but  with 
roughest  courage.  When  they  are  real,  they  are 
not  glass  threads  or  frost-work,  but  the  solidest  thing 
we  know.  For  now,  after  so  many  ages  of  experi 
ence,  what  do  we  know  of  nature,  or  of  ourselves  ? 
Not  one  step  has  man  taken  toward  the  solution  of 
the  problem  of  his  destiny.  In  one  condemnation  of 
folly  stand  the  whole  universe  of  men.  But  the 
sweet  sincerity  of  joy  and  peace,  which  I  draw  from 
this  alliance  with  my  brother's  soul,  is  the  nut  itself 


168  ESSAY   VI. 

whereof  all  nature  and  all  thought  is  but  the  husk  and 
shell.  Happy  is  the  house  that  shelters  a  friend  !  It 
might  well  be  built,  like  a  festal  bower  or  arch,  to  en 
tertain  him  a  single  day.  Happier,  if  he  know  the 
solemnity  of  that  relation,  and  honor  its  law  !  It  is  no 
idle  band,  no  holiday  engagement.  He  who  offers 
himself  a  candidate  for  that  covenant,  comes  up,  like  an 
Olympian,  to  the  great  games,  where  the  first-born  of  the 
world  are  the  competitors.  He  proposes  himself  for 
contests  where  Time,  Want,  Danger  are  in  the  lists, 
and  he  alone  is  victor  who  has  truth  enough  in  his 
constitution  to  preserve  the  delicacy  of  his  beauty 
from  the  wear  and  tear  of  all  these.  The  gifts  of  for 
tune  may  be  present  or  absent,  but  all  the  hap  in  that 
contest  depends  on  intrinsic  nobleness,  and  the  con 
tempt  of  trifles.  There  are  two  elements  that  go  to 
the  composition  of  friendship,  each  so  sovereign,  that 
I  can  detect  no  superiority  in  either,  no  reason  why 
either  should  be  first  named.  One  is  Truth.  A 
friend  is  a  person  with  whom  I  may  be  sincere.  Be 
fore  him,  I  may, think  aloud.  I  am  arrived  at  last  in 
the  presence  of  a  man  so  real  and  equal,  that  I  may 
drop  even  those  undermost  garments  of  dissimulation, 
courtesy,  and  second  thought,  which  men  never  put 
off,  and  may  deal  with  him  with  the  simplicity  and 
wholeness,  with  which  one  chemical  atom  meets  ano 
ther.  Sincerity  is  the  luxury  allowed,  like  diadems 
and  authority,  only  to  the  highest  rank,  that  being  per 
mitted  to  speak  truth,  as  having  none  above  it  to  court 
or  conform  unto.  Every  man  alone  is  sincere.  At 
the  entrance  of  a  second  person,  hypocrisy  begins. 


FRIENDSHIP.  169 

We  parry  and  fend  the  approach  of  our  fellow  man 
by  compliments,  by  gossip,  by  amusements,  by  af 
fairs.  We  cover  up  our  thought  from  him  under  a 
hundred  folds.  I  knew  a  man  who,  under  a  cer 
tain  religious  frenzy,  cast  off  this  drapery,  and  omit 
ting  all  compliment  and  commonplace,  spoke  to 
the  conscience  of  every  person  he  encountered,  and 
that  with  great  insight  and  beauty.  At  first  he  was 
resisted,  and  all  men  agreed  he  was  mad.  But  per 
sisting,  as  indeed  he  could  not  help  doing,  for  some 
time  in  this  course,  he  attained  to  the  advantage  of 
bringing  every  man  of  his  acquaintance  into  true  re 
lations  with  him.  No  man  would  think  of  speaking 
falsely  with  him,  or  of  putting  him  off  with  any  chat 
of  markets  or  reading-rooms.  But  every  man  was 
constrained  by  so  much  sincerity  to  face  him,  and 
what  love  of  nature,  what  poetry,  what  symbol  of 
truth  he  had,  he  did  certainly  show  him.  But  to  most 
of  us  society  shows  not  its  face  and  eye,  but  its  side 
and  its  back.  To  stand  in  true  relations  with  men  in 
a  false  age,  is  worth  a  fit  of  insanity,  is  it  not? 
We  can  seldom  go  erect.  Almost  every  man  we 
meet  requires  some  civility,  requires  to  be  humored ;  — 
he  has  some  fame,  some  talent,  some  whim  of  re 
ligion  or  philanthropy  in  his  head  that  is  not  to  be 
questioned,  and  so  spoils  all  conversation  with  him. 
But  a  friend  is  a  sane  man  who  exercises  not  my  in 
genuity  but  me.  My  friend  gives  me  entertainment 
without  requiring  me  to  stoop,  or  to  lisp,  or  to  mask 
myself.  A  friend,  therefore,  is  a  sort  of  paradox  in 
nature.  I  who  alone  am,  I  who  see  nothing  in  nature 
8 


170  ESSAY    VI. 

whose  existence  I  can  affirm  with  equal  evidence  to 
my  own,  behold  now  the  semblance  of  my  being  in 
all  its  height,  variety  and  curiosity,  reiterated  in  a  for 
eign  form  ;  so  that  a  friend  may  well  be  reckoned 
the  masterpiece  of  nature. 

The  other  element  of  friendship  is  Tenderness. 
We  are  holden  to  men  by  every  sort  of  tie,  by  blood, 
by  pride,  by  fear,  by  hope,  by  lucre,  by  lust,  by  hate, 
by  admiration,  by  every  circumstance  and  badge  and 
trifle,  but  we  can  scarce  believe  that  so  much  charac 
ter  can  subsist  in  another  as  to  draw  us  by  love.  Can 
another  be  so  blessed,  and  we  so  pure,  that  we  can  offer 
him  tenderness  ?  When  a  man  becomes  dear  to  me, 
I  have  touched  the  goal  of  fortune.  I  find  very  little 
written  directly  to  the  heart  of  this  matter  in  books. 
And  yet  I  have  one  text  which  I  cannot  choose  but 
remember.  My  author  says,  "  I  offer  myself  faintly 
and  bluntly  to  those  whose  I  effectually  am,  and  ten 
der  myself  least  to  him  to  whom  I  am  the  most  de 
voted."  I  wish  that  friendship  should  have  feet,  as 
well  as  eyes  and  eloquence.  It  must  plant  itself  on 
the  ground,  before  it  walks  over  the  moon.  I  wish  it 
to  be  a  little  of  a  citizen,  before  it  is  quite  a  cherub. 
We  chide  the  citizen  because  he  makes  love  a  com 
modity.  It  is  an  exchange  of  gifts,  of  useful  loans  ; 
it  is  good  neighborhood  ;  it  watches  with  the  sick  ;  it 
holds  the  pall  at  the  funeral ;  and  quite  loses  sight  of 
the  delicacies  and  nobility  of  the  relation.  But 
though  we  cannot  find  the  god  under  this  disguise  of 
a  sutler,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  forgive 
the  poet  if  he  spins  his  thread  too  fine,  and  does  not 


FRIENDSHIP.  171 

substantiate  his  romance  by  the  municipal  virtues  of 
justice,  punctuality,  fidelity  and  pity.  I  hate  the  pros 
titution  of  the  name  of  friendship  to  signify  modish 
and  worldly  alliances.  I  much  prefer  the  company  of 
plough-boys  and  tin-pedlars,  to  the  silken  and  per 
fumed  amity  which  only  celebrates  its  days  of  en 
counter  by  a  frivolous  display,  by  rides  in  a  curricle, 
and  dinners  at  the  best  taverns.  The  end  of  friend 
ship  is  a  commerce  the  most  strict  and  homely  that 
can  be  joined  ;  more  strict  than  any  of  which  we 
have  experience.  It  is  for  aid  and  comfort  through 
all  the  relations  and  passages  of  life  and  death.  It  is 
fit  for  serene  days,  and  graceful  gifts,  and  country 
rambles,  but  also  for  rough  roads  and  hard  fare,  ship 
wreck,  poverty,  and  persecution.  It  keeps  company 
with  the  sallies  of  the  wit  arid  the  trances  of  religion. 
We  are  to  dignify  to  each  other  the  daily  needs  and 
offices  of  man's  life,  and  embellish  it  by  courage,  wis 
dom  and  unity.  It  should  never  fall  into  something 
usual  and  settled,  but  should  be  alert  and  inventive,  and 
add  rhyme  and  reason  to  what  was  drudgery. 

For  perfect  friendship  it  may  be  said  to  require  na 
tures  so  rare  and  costly,  so  well  tempered  each,  and 
so  happily  adapted,  and  withal  so  circumstanced,  (for 
even  in  that  particular,  a  poet  says,  love  demands 
that  the  parties  be  altogether  paired,)  that  very  sel 
dom  can  its  satisfaction  be  realized.  It  cannot  sub 
sist  in  its  perfection,  say  some  of  those  who  are  learn 
ed  in  this  warm  lore  of  the  heart,  betwixt  more  than 
two.  I  am  not  quite  so  strict  in  my  terms,  perhaps 
because  I  have  never  known  so  high  a  fellowship  as 


172  ESSAY    VI. 

others.  I  please  my  imagination  more  with  a  circle 
of  godlike  men  and  women  variously  related  to  each 
other,  and  between  whom  subsists  a  lofty  intelligence. 
But  I  find  this  law  of  one  to  one,  peremptory  for  con 
versation,  which  is  the  practice  and  consummation  of 
friendship.  Do  not  mix  waters  too  much.  The  best 
mix  as  ill  as  good  and  bad.  You  shall  have  very  use 
ful  and  cheering  discourse  at  several  times  with  two 
several  men,  but  let  all  three  of  you  come  together, 
and  you  shall  not  have  one  new  and  hearty  word. 
Two  may  talk  and  one  may  hear,  but  three  cannot 
take  part  in  a  conversation  of  the  most  sincere  and 
searching  sort.  In  good  company  there  is  never  such 
discourse  between  two,  across  the  table,  as  takes  place 
when  you  leave  them  alone.  In  good  company,  the 
individuals  at  once  merge  their  egotism  into  a  social 
soul  exactly  coextensive  with  the  several  conscious 
nesses  there  present.  No  partialities  of  friend  to  friend, 
no  fondnesses  of  brother  to  sister,  of  wife  to  husband, 
are  there  pertinent,  but  quite  otherwise.  Only  he  may 
then  speak  who  can  sail  on  the  common  thought  of 
the  party,  and  not  poorly  limited  to  his  own.  Now 
this  convention,  which  good  sense  demands,  destroys 
the  high  freedom  of  great  conversation,  which  requires 
an  absolute  running  of  two  souls  into  one. 

No  two  men  but  being  left  alone  with  each  other, 
enter  into  simpler  relations.  Yet  it  is  affinity  that  de 
termines  which  two  shall  converse.  Unrelated  men 
give  little  joy  to  each  other  ;  will  never  suspect  the 
latent  powers  of  each.  We  talk  sometimes  of  a  great 
talent  for  conversation,  as  if  it  were  a  permanent  pro- 


FRIENDSHIP.  173 

perty  in  some  individuals.  Conversation  is  an  evan 
escent  relation,  —  no  more.  A  man  is  reputed  to 
have  thought  and  eloquence  ;  he  cannot,  for  all  that, 
say  a  word  to  his  cousin  or  his  uncle.  They  accuse 
his  silence  with  as  much  reason  as  they  would  blame 
the  insignificance  of  a  dial  in  the  shade.  In  the  sun 
it  will  mark  the  hour.  Among  those  who  enjoy  his 
thought,  he  will  regain  his  tongue. 

Friendship  requires  that  rare  mean  betwixt  like 
ness  and  unlikeness,  that  piques  each  with  the  pres 
ence  of  power  and  of  consent  in  the  other  party.  Let 
me  be  alone  to  the  end  of  the  world,  rather  than  that 
my  friend  should  overstep  by  a  word  or  a  look  his 
real  sympathy.  I  am  equally  baulked  by  antagonism 
and  by  compliance.  Let  him  not  cease  an  instant  to 
be  himself.  The  only  joy  I  have  in  his  being  mine,  is 
that  the  not  mine  is  mine.  It  turns  the  stomach,  it 
blots  the  daylight ;  where  I  looked  for  a  manly  fur 
therance,  or  at  least  a  manly  resistance,  to  find  a 
mush  of  concession.  Better  be  a  nettle  in  the  side 
of  your  friend  than  his  echo.  The  condition  which 
high  friendship  demands,  is,  ability  to  do  without  it. 
To  be  capable  of  that  high  office,  requires  great  and 
sublime  parts.  There  must  be  very  two,  before  there 
can  be  very  one.  Let  it  be  an  alliance  of  two  large 
formidable  natures,  mutually  beheld,  mutually  feared, 
before  yet  they  recognise  the  deep  identity  which  be 
neath  these  disparities  unites  them. 

He  only  is  fit  for  this  society  who  is  magnanimous. 
He  must  be  so,  to  know  its  law.  He  must  be  one 
who  is  sure  that  greatness  and  goodness  are  always 


174 


ESSAY    VI. 


economy.  He  must  be  one  who  is  not  swift  to  inter 
meddle  with  his  fortunes.  Let  him  not  dare  to  inter 
meddle  with  this.  Leave  to  the  diamond  its  ages  to 
grow,  nor  expect  to  accelerate  the  births  of  the  eter 
nal.  Friendship  demands  a  religious  treatment.  We 
must  not  be  wilful,  we  must  not  provide.  We  talk  of 
choosing  our  friends,  but  friends  are  self-elected. 
Reverence  is  a  great  part  of  it.  Treat  your  friend  as 
a  spectacle.  Of  course,  if  he  be  a  man,  he  has 
merits  that  are  not  yours,  and  that  you  cannot  honor, 
if  you  must  needs  hold  him  close  to  your  person. 
Stand  aside.  Give  those  merits  room.  Let  them 
mount  and  expand.  Be  not  so  much  his  friend  that 
you  can  never  know  his  peculiar  energies,  like  fond 
mammas  who  shut  up  their  boy  in  the  house  until  he 
is  almost  grown  a  girl.  Are  you  the  friend  of  your 
friend's  buttons,  or  of  his  thought  ?  To  a  great  heart 
he  will  still  be  a  stranger  in  a  thousand  particulars, 
that  he  may  come  near  in  the  holiest  ground.  Leave 
it  to  girls  and  boys  to  regard  a  friend  as  property,  and 
to  suck  a  short  and  all-confounding  pleasure  instead 
of  the  pure  nectar  of  God. 

Let  us  buy  our  entrance  to  this  guild  by  a  long  pro 
bation.  Why  should  we  desecrate  noble  and  beauti 
ful  souls  by  intruding  on  them  ?  Why  insist  on  rash 
personal  relations  with  your  friend  ?  Why  go  to  his 
house,  or  know  his  mother  and  brother  and  sisters  ? 
Why  be  visited  by  him  at  your  own?  Are  these 
things  material  to  our  covenant  ?  Leave  this  touch 
ing  and  clawing.  Let  him  be  to  me  a  spirit.  A  mes 
sage,  a  thought,  a  sincerity,  a  glance  from  him,  I 


FRIENDSHIP.  175 

want,  but  not  news,  nor  pottage.  I  can  get  politics, 
and  chat,  and  neighborly  conveniences,  from  cheaper 
companions.  Should  not  the  society  of  my  friend  be 
to  me  poetic,  pure,  universal,  and  great  as  nature 
itself?  Ought  I  to  feel  that  our  tie  is  profane  in  com 
parison  with  yonder  bar  of  cloud  that  sleeps  on  the 
horizon,  or  that  clump  of  waving  grass  that  divides 
the  brook  ?  Let  us  not  vilify  but  raise  it  to  that  stand 
ard.  That  great  defying  eye,  that  scornful  beauty 
of  his  mien  and  action,  do  not  pique  yourself  on  re 
ducing,  but  rather  fortify  and  enhance.  Worship  his 
superiorities.  Wish  him  not  less  by  a  thought,  but 
hoard  and  tell  them  all.  Guard  him  as  thy  great 
counterpart;  have  a  princedom  to  thy  friend.  Let 
him  be  to  thee  forever  a  sort  of  beautiful  enemy,  un 
tamable,  devoutly  revered,  and  not  a  trivial  conven- 
iency  to  be  soon  outgrown  and  cast  aside.  The  hues 
of  the  opal,  the  light  of  the  diamond,  are  not  to  be 
seen,  if  the  eye  is  too  near.  To  my  friend  I  write  a 
letter,  and  from  him  I  receive  a  letter.  That  seems 
to  you  a  little.  Me  it  suffices.  It  is  a  spiritual  gift 
worthy  of  him  to  give  and  of  me  to  receive.  It  pro 
fanes  nobody.  In  these  warm  lines  the  heart  will 
trust  itself,  as  it  will  not  to  the  tongue,  and  pour  out 
the  prophecy  of  a  godlier  existence  than  all  the 
annals  of  heroism  have  yet  made  good. 

Respect  so  far  the  holy  laws  of  this  fellowship  as 
not  to  prejudice  its  perfect  flower  by  your  impa 
tience  for  its  opening.  We  must  be  our  own,  before 
we  can  be  another's.  There  is  at  least  this  satisfac 
tion  in  crime,  according  to  the  Latin  proverb ;  you 


176  ESSAY    VI. 

can  speak  to  your  accomplice  on  even  terms.  Crimen 
quos  inquinat,  cequat.  To  those  whom  we  admire 
and  love,  at  first  we  cannot.  Yet  the  least  defect  of 
self-possession  vitiates,  in  my  judgment,  the  entire  re 
lation.  There  can  never  be  deep  peace  between  two 
spirits,  never  mutual  respect  until,  in  their  dialogue, 
each  stands  for  the  whole  world. 

What  is  so  great  as  friendship,  let  us  carry  with 
what  grandeur  of  spirit  we  can.  Let  us  be  silent,  —  so 
we  may  hear  the  whisper  of  the  gods.  Let  us  not  inter 
fere.  Who  set  you  to  cast  about  what  you  should  say 
to  the  select  souls,  or  to  say  any  thing  to  such  ?  No 
matter  how  ingenious,  no  matter  how  graceful  and 
bland.  There  are  innumerable  degrees  of  folly  and 
wisdom,  and  for  you  to  say  aught  is  to  be  frivolous. 
Wait,  and  thy  soul  shall  speak.  Wait  until  the  neces 
sary  and  everlasting  overpowers  you,  until  day  and 
night  avail  themselves  of  your  lips.  The  only  money 
of  God  is  God.  He  pays  never  with  any  thing  less 
or  any  thing  else.  The  only  reward  of  virtue,  is  vir 
tue  :  the  only  way  to  have  a  friend,  is  to  be  one. 
Vain  to  hope  to  come  nearer  a  man  by  getting  into 
his  house.  If  unlike,  his  soul  only  flees  the  faster 
from  you,  and  you  shall  catch  never  a  true  glance  of 
his  eye.  We  see  the  noble  afar  off,  and  they  repel 
us ;  why  should  we  intrude  ?  Late  —  very  late  — 
we  perceive  that  no  arrangements,  no  introductions, 
no  consuetudes,  or  habits  of  society,  would  be  of  any 
avail  to  establish  us  in  such  relations  with  them  as  we 
desire,  —  but  solely  the  uprise  of  nature  in  us  to  the 
same  degree  it  is  in  them  :  then  shall  we  meet  as 


FRIENDSHIP.  177 

water  with  water  :  and  if  we  should  not  meet  them 
then,  we  shall  not  want  them,  for  we  are  already  they. 
In  the  last  analysis,  love  is  only  the  reflection  of  a 
man's  own  worthiness  from  other  men.  Men  have 
sometimes  exchanged  names  with  their  friends,  as  if 
they  would  signify  that  in  their  friend  each  loved  his 
own  soul. 

The  higher  the  style  we  demand  of  friendship,  of 
course  the  less  easy  to  establish  it  with  flesh  and 
blood.  We  walk  alone  in  the  world.  Friends,  such 
as  we  desire,  are  dreams  and  fables.  But  a  sublime 
hope  cheers  ever  the  faithful  heart,  that  elsewhere,  in 
other  regions  of  the  universal  power,  souls  are  now 
acting,  enduring,  and  daring,  which  can  love  us,  and 
which  we  can  love.  We  may  congratulate  ourselves 
that  the  period  of  nonage,  of  follies,  of  blunders,  and 
of  shame,  is  passed  in  solitude,  and  when  we  are 
finished  men,  we  shall  grasp  heroic  hands  in  heroic 
hands.  Only  be  admonished  by  what  you  already 
see,  not  to  strike  leagues  of  friendship  with  cheap 
persons,  where  no  friendship  can  be.  Our  impatience 
betrays  us  into  rash  and  foolish  alliances  which  no 
God  attends.  By  persisting  in  your  path,  though  you 
forfeit  the  little,  you  gain  the  great.  You  become 
pronounced.  You  demonstrate  yourself,  so  as  to  put 
yourself  out  of  the  reach  of  false  relations,  and  you 
draw  to  you  the  first-born  of  the  world,  —  those  rare 
pilgrims  whereof  only  one  or  two  wander  in  nature 
at  once,  and  before  whom  the  vulgar  great,  show  as 
spectres  and  shadows  merely. 

It  is  foolish  to  be  afraid  of  making  our  ties  too 
8* 


178  ESSAY   VI. 

spiritual,  as  if  so  we  could  lose  any  genuine  love. 
Whatever  correction  of  our  popular  views  we  make 
from  insight,  nature  will  be  sure  to  bear  us  out  in, 
and  though  it  seem  to  rob  us  of  some  joy,  will  repay 
us  with  a  greater.  Let  us  feel,  if  we  will,  the  abso 
lute  insulation  of  man.  We  are  sure  that  we  have  all 
in  us.  We  go  to  Europe,  or  we  pursue  persons,  or 
we  read  books,  in  the  instinctive  faith  that  these  will 
call  it  out  and  reveal  us  to  ourselves.  Beggars  all. 
The  persons  are  such  as  we  ;  the  Europe,  an  old  faded 
garment  of  dead  persons  ;  the  books,  their  ghosts. 
Let  us  drop  this  idolatry.  Let  us  give  over  this  men 
dicancy.  Let  us  even  bid  our  dearest  friends  fare 
well,  and  defy  them,  saying,  '  Who  are  you  ?  Unhand 
me  :  I  will  be  dependent  no  more.'  Ah  !  seest  thou 
not,  O  brother,  that  thus  we  part  only  to  meet  again 
on  a  higher  platform,  and  only  be  more  each  other's, 
because  we  are  more  our  own  ?  A  friend  is  Janus- 
faced  :  he  looks  to  the  past  and  the  future.  He  is 
the  child  of  all  my  foregoing  hours,  the  prophet  of 
those  to  come.  He  is  the  harbinger  of  a  greater 
friend.  It  is  the  property  of  the  divine  to  be  repro 
ductive. 

I  do  then  with  my  friends  as  I  do  with  my  books. 
I  would  have  them  where  I  can  find  them,  but  I  sel 
dom  use  them.  We  must  have  society  on  our  own 
terms,  and  admit  or  exclude  it  on  the  slightest  cause. 
1  cannot  afford  to  speak  much  with  my  friend.  If  he 
is  great,  he  makes  me  so  great  that  I  cannot  descend 
to  converse.  In  the  great  days,  presentiments  hover 
before  me,  far  before  me  in  the  firmament.  I  ought 


FRIENDSHIP.  179 

then  to  dedicate  myself  to  them.  I  go  in  that  I  may 
seize  them,  I  go  out  that  I  may  seize  them.  I  fear 
only  that  I  may  lose  them  receding  into  the  sky  in 
which  now  they  are  only  a  patch  of  brighter  light. 
Then,  though  I  prize  my  friends,  I  cannot  afford  to 
talk  with  them  and  study  their  visions,  lest  I  lose  my 
own.  It  would  indeed  give  me  a  certain  household 
joy  to  quit  this  lofty  seeking,  this  spiritual  astronomy, 
or  search  of  stars,  and  come  down  to  warm  sympa 
thies  with  you  ;  but  then  I  know  well  I  shall  mourn 
always  the  vanishing  of  my  mighty  gods.  It  is  true, 
next  week  I  shall  have  languid  times,  when  I  can  well 
afford  to  occupy  myself  with  foreign  objects  ;  then  I 
shall  regret  the  lost  literature  of  your  mind,  and  wish 
you  were  by  my  side  again.  But  if  you  come,  per 
haps  you  will  fill  my  mind  only  with  new  visions,  not 
with  yourself  but  with  your  lustres,  and  I  shall  not  be 
able  any  more  than  now  to  converse  with  you.  So  I 
will  owe  to  my  friends  this  evanescent  intercourse. 
I  will  receive  from  them  not  what  they  have,  but  what 
they  are.  They  shall  give  me  that  which  properly 
they  cannot  give  me,  but  which  radiates  from  them. 
But  they  shall  not  hold  me  by  any  relations  less  subtle 
and  pure.  We  will  meet  as  though  we  met  not,  and 
part  as  though  we  parted  not. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  lately  more  possible  than  I 
knew,  to  carry  a  friendship  greatly,  on  one  side,  with 
out  due  correspondence  on  the  other.  Why  should  I 
cumber  myself  with  the  poor  fact  that  the  receiver  is 
not  capacious  ?  It  never  troubles  the  sun  that  some 
of  his  rays  fall  wide  and  vain  into  ungrateful  space^ 


180  ESSAY   VI. 

and  only  a  small  part  on  the  reflecting  planet.  Let 
your  greatness  educate  the  crude  and  cold  companion. 
If  he  is  unequal,  he  will  presently  pass  away,  but 
thou  art  enlarged  by  thy  own  shining  ;  and,  no  longer 
a  mate  for  frogs  and  worms,  dost  soar  and  burn  with 
the  gods  of  the  empyrean.  It  is  thought  a  disgrace 
to  love  unrequited.  But  the  great  will  see  that  true 
love  cannot  be  unrequited.  True  love  transcends  in 
stantly  the  unworthy  object,  and  dwells  and  broods 
on  the  eternal,  and  when  the  poor,  interposed  mask 
crumbles,  it  is  not  sad,  but  feels  rid  of  so  much  earth, 
and  feels  its  independency  the  surer.  Yet  these 
things  may  hardly  be  said  without  a  sort  of  treachery 
to  the  relation.  The  essence  of  friendship  is  entire- 
ness,  a  total  magnanimity  and  trust.  It  must  not  sur 
mise  or  provide  for  infirmity.  It  treats  its  object  as 
a  god,  that  it  may  deify  both. 


PRUDENCE 


ESSAY    VII. 
PRUDENCE 


WHAT  right  have  I  to  write  on  Prudence,  whereof  I 
have  little,  and  that  of  the  negative  sort  ?  My  pru 
dence  consists  in  avoiding  and  going  without,  not  in 
the  inventing  of  means  and  methods,  not  in  adroit 
steering,  not  in  gentle  repairing.  I  have  no  skill  to 
make  money  spend  well,  no  genius  in  my  economy, 
and  whoever  sees  my  garden,  discovers  that  I  must 
have  some  other  garden.  Yet  I  love  facts,  and  hate 
lubricity,  and  people  without  perception.  Then  I 
have  the  same  title  to  write  on  prudence,  that  I  have 
to  write  on  poetry  or  holiness.  We  write  from 
aspiration  and  antagonism,  as  well  as  from  experi 
ence.  We  paint  those  qualities  which  we  do  not 
possess.  The  poet  admires  the  man  of  energy  and 
tactics  ;  the  merchant  breeds  his  son  for  the  church 
or  the  bar  :  and  where  a  man  is  not  vain  and  egotis 
tic,  you  shall  find  what  he  has  not,  by  his  praise. 


184  ESSAY    VII. 

Moreover,  it  would  be  hardly  honest  in  me  not  to 
balance  these  fine  lyric  words  of  Love  and  Friendship 
with  words  of  coarser  sound,  and  whilst  my  debt  to 
my  senses  is  real  and  constant,  not  to  own  it  in  pass 
ing. 

Prudence  is  the  virtue  of  the  senses.  It  is  the  sci 
ence  of  appearances.  It  is  the  outmost  action  of  the 
inward  life.  It  is  God  taking  thought  for  oxen.  It 
moves  matter  after  the  laws  of  matter.  It  is  content 
to  seek  health  of  body  by  complying  with  physical 
conditions,  and  health  of  mind  by  the  laws  of  the  in 
tellect. 

The  world  of  the  senses  is  a  world  of  shows  ;  it 
does  not  exist  for  itself,  but  has  a  symbolic  character ; 
and  a  true  prudence  or  law  of  shows,  recognises  the 
co-presence  of  other  laws ;  and  knows  that  its  own 
office  is  subaltern  ;  knows  that  it  is  surface  and  not 
centre  where  it  works.  Prudence  is  false  when  de 
tached.  It  is  legitimate  when  it  is  the  Natural  History 
of  the  soul  incarnate  ;  when  it  unfolds  the  beauty  of 
laws  within  the  narrow  scope  of  the  senses. 

There  are  all  degrees  of  proficiency  in  knowledge 
of  the  world.  It  is  sufficient,  to  our  present  purpose, 
to  indicate  three.  One  class  lives  to  the  utility  of  the 
symbol ;  esteeming  health  and  wealth  a  final  good. 
Another  class  live  above  this  mark  to  the  beauty  of 
the  symbol ;  as  the  poet,  and  artist,  and  the  naturalist, 
and  man  of  science.  A  third  class  live  above  the  beauty 
of  the  symbol  to  the  beauty  of  the  thing  signified  ;  these 
are  wise  men.  The  first  class  have  common  sense  ;  the 
second,  taste  ;  and  the  third,  spiritual  perception.  Once 


PRUDENCE.  185 

in  a  long  time,  a  man  traverses  the  whole  scale,  and  sees 
and  enjoys  the  symbol  solidly  ;  then  also  has  a  clear 
eye  for  its  heauty,  and,  lastly,  whilst  he  pitches  his  tent 
on  this  sacred  volcanic  isle  of  nature,  does  not  offer 
to  build  houses  and  barns  thereon,  reverencing  the 
splendor  of  the  God  which  he  sees  bursting  through 
each  chink  and  cranny. 

The  world  is  filled  with  the  proverbs  and  acts  and 
winkings  of  a  base  prudence,  which  is  a  devotion  to 
matter  as  if  we  possessed  no  other  faculties  than  the 
palate,  the  nose,  the  touch,  the  eye  and  ear  ;  a  pru 
dence  which  adores  the  Rule  of  Three,  which  never 
subscribes,  which  gives  never,  which  lends  seldom, 
and  asks  but  one  question  of  any  project  —  Will  it 
bake  bread  ?  This  is  a  disease  like  a  thickening  of 
the  skin  until  the  vital  organs  are  destroyed.  But 
culture,  revealing  the  high  origin  of  the  apparent 
world,  and  aiming  at  the  perfection  of  the  man  as  the 
end,  degrades  every  thing  else,  as  health  and  bodily 
life,  into  means.  It  sees  prudence  not  to  be  a  seve 
ral  faculty,  but  a  name  for  wisdom  and  virtue  con 
versing  with  the  body  and  its  wants.  Cultivated  men 
always  feel  and  speak  so,  as  if  a  great  fortune,  the 
achievement  of  a  civil  or  social  measure,  great  per 
sonal  influence,  a  graceful  and  commanding  address 
had  their  value  as  proofs  of  the  energy  of  the  spirit. 
If  a  man  lose  his  balance,  and  immerse  himself  in 
any  trades  or  pleasures  for  their  own  sake,  he  may  be 
a  good  wheel  or  pin,  but  he  is  not  a  cultivated  man. 

The  spurious  prudence,  making  the  senses  final,  is 
the  god  of  sots  and  cowards,  and  is  the  subject  of 


186  ESSAY  VII. 

all  comedy.  It  is  nature's  joke,  and  therefore  litera 
ture's.  The  true  prudence  limits  this  sensualism  by 
admitting  the  knowledge  of  an  internal  and  real 
world.  This  recognition  once  made,  —  the  order  of 
the  world  and  the  distribution  of  affairs  and  times  be 
ing  studied  with  the  co-perception  of  their  subordinate 
place,  will  reward  any  degree  of  attention.  For,  our 
existence  thus  apparently  attached  in  nature  to  the 
sun  and  the  returning  moon  and  the  periods  which 
they  mark  ;  so  susceptible  to  climate  and  to  country, 
so  alive  to  social  good  and  evil,  so  fond  of  splendor, 
and  so  tender  to  hunger  and  cold  and  debt,  —  reads 
all  its  primary  lessons  out  of  these  books. 

Prudence  does  not  go  behind  nature,  and  ask, 
whence  it  is  ?  It  takes  the  laws  of  the  world  whereby 
man's  being  is  conditioned,  as  they  are,  and  keeps 
these  laws,  that  it  may  enjoy  their  proper  good.  It 
respects  space  and  time,  climate,  want,  sleep,  the  law 
of  polarity,  growth  and  death.  There  revolve  to 
give  bound  and  period  to  his  being,  on  all  sides,  the 
sun  and  moon,  the  great  formalists  in  the  sky  :  here 
lies  stubborn  matter,  and  will  not  swerve  from  its 
chemical  routine.  Here  is  a  planted  globe,  pierced 
and  belted  with  natural  laws,  and  fenced  and  distri 
buted  externally  with  civil  partitions  and  properties 
which  impose  new  restraints  on  the  young  inhabitant. 

We  eat  of  the  bread  which  grows  in  the  field. 
We  live  by  the  air  which  blows  around  us,  and  we 
are  poisoned  by  the  air  that  is  too  cold  or  too  hot, 
too  dry  or  too  wet.  Time,  which  shows  so  va 
cant,  indivisible  and  divine  in  its  coming,  is  slit  and 


PRUDENCE.  187 

peddled  into  trifles  and  tatters.  A  door  is  to  be 
painted,  a  lock  to  be  repaired.  I  want  wood,  or  oil, 
or  meal,  or  salt ;  the  house  smokes,  or  I  have  a  head 
ache  ;  then  the  tax ;  and  an  affair  to  be  transacted 
with  a  man  without  heart  or  brains ;  and  the  stinging 
recollection  of  an  injurious  or  very  awkward  word,  — 
these  eat  up  the  hours.  Do  what  we  can,  summer 
will  have  its  flies.  If  we  walk  in  the  woods,  we  must 
feed  musquitoes.  If  we  go  a  fishing,  we  must  expect 
a  wet  coat.  Then  climate  is  a  great  impediment  to 
idle  persons.  We  often  resolve  to  give  up  the  care  of 
the  weather,  but  still  we  regard  the  clouds  and  the  rain. 
We  are  instructed  by  these  petty  experiences 
which  usurp  the  hours  and  years.  The  hard  soil  and 
four  months  of  snow  make  the  inhabitant  of  the 
northern  temperate  zone  wiser  and  abler  than  his  fel 
low  who  enjoys  the  fixed  smile  of  the  tropics.  The 
islander  may  ramble  all  day  at  will.  At  night,  he 
may  sleep  on  a  mat  under  the  moon,  and  wherever  a 
wild  date-tree  grows,  nature  has,  without  a  prayer 
even,  spread  a  table  for  his  morning  meal.  The 
northerner  is  perforce  a  householder.  He  must 
brew,  bake,  salt  and  preserve  his  food.  He  must  pile 
wood  and  coal.  But  as  it  happens  that  not  one  stroke 
can  labor  lay  to,  without  some  new  acquaintance  with 
nature  ;  and  as  nature  is  inexhaustibly  significant,  the 
inhabitants  of  these  climates  have  always  excelled 
the  southerner  in  force.  Such  is  the  value  of 
these  matters,  that  a  man  who  knows  other  things, 
can  never  know  too  much  of  these.  Let  him  have 
accurate  perceptions.  Let  him,  if  he  have  hands, 


188  ESSAY    VII. 

handle ;  if  eyes,  measure  and  discriminate  ;  let  him 
accept  and  hive  every  fact  of  chemistry,  natural  his 
tory,  and  economics  ;  the  more  he  has,  the  less  is  he 
willing  to  spare  any  one.  Time  is  always  bringing 
the  occasions  that  disclose  their  value.  Some  wisdom 
comes  out  of  every  natural  and  innocent  action. 
The  domestic  man,  who  loves  no  music  so  well  as  his 
kitchen  clock,  and  the  airs  which  the  logs  sing  to  him 
as  they  burn  on  the  hearth,  has  solaces  which  others 
never  dream  of.  The  application  of  means  to  ends, 
ensures  victory  and  the  songs  of  victory  not  less  in  a 
farm  or  a  shop,  than  in  the  tactics  of  party,  or  of  war. 
The  good  husband  finds  method  as  efficient  in  the 
packing  of  fire- wood  in  a  shed,  or  in  the  harvesting 
of  fruits  in  the  cellar,  as  in  Peninsular  campaigns  or 
the  files  of  the  Department  of  State.  In  the  rainy 
day  he  builds  a  work-bench,  or  gets  his  tool-box  set  in 
the  corner  of  the  barn-chamber,  and  stored  with  nails, 
gimlet,  pincers,  screwdriver,  and  chisel.  Herein  he 
tastes  an  old  joy  of  youth  and  childhood,  the  cat-like 
love  of  garrets,  presses,  and  corn-chambers,  and  of 
the  conveniences  of  long  housekeeping.  His  garden 
or  his  poultry-yard,  —  very  paltry  places,  it  may  be,  — 
tell  him  many  pleasant  anecdotes.  One  might  find 
argument  for  optimism,  in  the  abundant  flow  of  this 
saccharine  element  of  pleasure,  in  every  suburb  and 
extremity  of  the  good  world.  Let  a  man  keep  the 
law,  —  any  law,  —  and  his  way  will  be  strown  with 
satisfactions.  There  is  more  difference  in  the  quality 
of  our  pleasures  than  in  the  amount. 

On  the  other  hand,  nature  punishes  any  neglect  of 


PRUDENCE.  189 

prudence.  If  you  think  the  senses  final,  obey  their 
law.  If  you  believe  in  the  soul,  do  not  clutch  at 
sensual  sweetness  before  it  is  ripe  on  the  slow  tree  of 
cause  and  effect.  It  is  vinegar  to  the  eyes,  to  deal 
with  men  of  loose  and  imperfect  perception.  Dr. 
Johnson  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  If  the  child  says, 
he  looked  out  of  this  window,  when  he  looked  out  of 
that,  —  whip  him."  Our  American  character  is 
marked  by  a  more  than  average  delight  in  accurate 
perception,  which  is  shown  by  the  currency  of  the 
by-word,  "  No  mistake."  But  the  discomfort  of 
unpunctuality,  of  confusion  of  thought  about  facts,  of 
inattention  to  the  wants  of  to-morrow,  is  of  no  na 
tion.  The  beautiful  laws  of  time  and  space  once 
dislocated  by  our  inaptitude,  are  holes  and  dens.  If 
the  hive  be  disturbed  by  rash  and  stupid  hands,  instead 
of  honey,  it  will  yield  us  bees.  Our  words  and  ac 
tions  to  be  fair,  must  be  timely.  A  gay  and  pleasant 
sound  is  the  whetting  of  the  scythe  in  the  mornings 
of  June  ;  yet  what  is  more  lonesome  and  sad  than 
the  sound  of  a  whetstone  or  mower's  rifle,  when  it  is 
too  late  in  the  season  to  make  hay  ?  Scatter-brained 
and  "  afternoon  men"  spoil  much  more  than  their  own 
affair,  in  spoiling  the  temper  of  those  who  deal  with 
them.  I  have  seen  a  criticism  on  some  paintings,  of 
which  I  am  reminded,  when  I  see  the  shiftless  and  un 
happy  men  who  are  not  true  to  their  senses.  The  last 
Grand  Duke  of  Weimar,  a  man  of  superior  under 
standing,  said  ;  "I  have  sometimes  remarked  in  the 
presence  of  great  works  of  art,  and  just  now  espe 
cially,  in  Dresden,  how  much  a  certain  property  con- 


190  ESSAY    VII. 

tributes  to  the  effect  which  gives  life  to  the  figures, 
and  to  the  life  an  irresistible  truth.  This  property  is 
the  hitting,  in  all  the  figures  we  draw,  the  right  centre 
of  gravity.  I  mean,  the  placing  the  figures  firm  upon 
their  feet,  making  the  hands  grasp,  and  fastening  the 
eyes  on  the  spot  where  they  should  look.  Even  life 
less  figures,  as  vessels  and  stools,  —  let  them  be 
drawn  ever  so  correctly,  —  lose  all  effect  so  soon  as 
they  lack  the  resting  upon  their  centre  of  gravity, 
and  have  a  certain  swimming  and  oscillating  appear 
ance.  The  Raphael,  in  the  Dresden  gallery,  (the  only 
greatly  affecting  picture  which  I  have  seen),  is  the 
quietest  and  most  passionless  piece  you  can  imagine  ; 
a  couple  of  saints  who  worship  the  Virgin  and  child. 
Nevertheless,  it  awakens  a  deeper  impression  than 
the  contortions  of  ten  crucified  martyrs.  For,  beside 
all  the  resistless  beauty  of  form,  it  possesses  in  the 
highest  degree  the  property  of  the  perpendicularity  of 
all  the  figures."  —  This  perpendicularity  we  demand 
of  all  the  figures  in  this  picture  of  life.  Let  them 
stand  on  their  feet,  and  not  float  and  swing.  Let  us 
know  where  to  find  them.  Let  them  discriminate 
between  what  they  remember,  and  what  they  dreamed. 
Let  them  call  a  spade  a  spade.  Let  them  give  us 
facts,  and  honor  their  own  senses  with  trust. 

But  what  man  shall  dare  tax  another  with  impru 
dence  ?  Who  is  prudent  ?  The  men  we  call  greatest 
are  least  in  this  kingdom.  There  is  a  certain  fatal 
dislocation  in  our  relation  to  nature,  distorting  all  our 
modes  of  living,  and  making  every  law  our  enemy, 
which  seems  at  last  to  have  aroused  all  the  wit  and 


PRUDENCE.  191 

virtue  in  the  world  to  ponder  the  question  of  Reform. 
We  must  call  the  highest  prudence  to  counsel,  and 
ask  why  health  and  beauty  and  genius  should  now  be 
the  exception,  rather  than  the  rule  of  human  nature  ? 
We  do  not  know  the  properties  of  plants  and  animals 
and  the  laws  of  nature  through  our  sympathy  with 
the  same  ;  but  this  remains  the  dream  of  poets.  Po 
etry  and  prudence  should  be  coincident.  Poets  should 
be  lawgivers  ;  that  is,  the  boldest  lyric  inspiration 
should  not  chide  and  insult,  but  should  announce  and 
lead  the  civil  code,  and  the  day's  work.  But  now 
the  two  things  seem  irreconcilably  parted.  We  have 
violated  law  upon  law,  until  we  stand  amidst  ruins, 
and  when  by  chance  we  espy  a  coincidence  between 
reason  and  the  phenomena,  we  are  surprised.  Beauty 
should  be  the  dowry  of  every  man  and  woman,  as  in 
variably  as  sensation  ;  but  it  is  rare.  Health  or  sound 
organization  should  be  universal.  Genius  should  be 
the  child  of  genius,  and  every  child  should  be  in 
spired  ;  but  now  it  is  not  to  be  predicted  of  any  child, 
and  nowhere  is  it  pure.  We  call  partial  half-lights, 
by  courtesy,  genius;  talent  which  converts  itself  to 
money,  talent  which  glitters  to-day,  that  it  may  dine 
and  sleep  well  to-morrow  ;  and  society  is  officered  by 
men  of  parts,  as  they  are  properly  called,  and  not  by 
divine  men.  These  use  their  gifts  to  refine  luxury, 
not  to  abolish  it.  Genius  is  always  ascetic  ;  and  piety 
and  love.  Appetite  shows  to  the  finer  souls  as  a  dis 
ease,  and  they  find  beauty  in  rites  and  bounds  that 
resist  it. 

We  have  found  out  fine  names  to  cover  our  sensu- 


192  ESSAY    VII. 

ality  withal,  but  no  gifts  can  raise  intemperance. 
The  man  of  talent  affects  to  call  his  transgressions  of 
the  laws  of  the  senses  trivial,  and  to  count  them  nothing 
considered  with  his  devotion  to  his  art.  His  art  rebukes 
him.  That  never  taught  him  lewdness,  nor  the  love 
of  wine,  nor  the  wish  to  reap  where  he  had  not  sowed. 
His  art  is  less  for  every  deduction  from  his  holiness, 
and  less  for  every  defect  of  common  sense.  On  him 
who  scorned  the  world,  as  he  said,  the  scorned  world 
wreaks  its  revenge.  He  that  despiseth  small  things, 
will  perish  by  little  and  little.  Goethe's  Tasso  is  very 
likely  to  be  a  pretty  fair  historical  portrait,  and  that  is 
true  tragedy.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  so  genuine 
grief  when  some  tyrannous  Richard  III.  oppresses 
and  slays  a  score  of  innocent  persons,  as  when  An 
tonio  and  Tasso,  both  apparently  right,  wrong  each 
other.  One  living  after  the  maxims  of  this  world, 
and  consistent  and  true  to  them,  the  other  fired  with 
all  divine  sentiments,  yet  grasping  also  at  the  pleas 
ures  of  sense,  without  submitting  to  their  law.  That 
is  a  grief  we  all  feel,  a  knot  we  cannot  untie.  Tasso's 
is  no  infrequent  case  in  modern  biography.  A  man 
of  genius,  of  an  ardent  temperament,  reckless  of  phys 
ical  laws,  self-indulgent,  becomes  presently  unfortu 
nate,  querulous,  a  "  discomfortable  cousin,"  a  thorn 
to  himself  and  to  others. 

The  scholar  shames  us  by  his  bifold  life.  Whilst 
something  higher  than  prudence  is  active,  he  is  admi 
rable  ;  when  common  sense  is  wanted,  he  is  an  in- 
cumbrance.  Yesterday,  Csesar  was  not  so  great ; 
to-day,  Job  not  so  miserable.  Yesterday,  radiant 


PRUDENCE.  193 

with  the  light  of  an  ideal  world,  in  which  he  lives, 
the  first  of  men,  and  now  oppressed  by  wants,  and  by 
sickness,  for  which  he  must  thank  himself,  none  is  so 
poor  to  do  him  reverence.  He  resembles  the  opium 
eaters,  whom  travellers  describe  as  frequenting  the 
bazaars  of  Constantinople,  who  skulk  about  all  day, 
the  most  pitiful  drivellers,  yellow,  emaciated,  ragged, 
and  sneaking  ;  then,  at  evening,  when  the  bazaars  are 
open,  they  slink  to  the  opium  shop,  swallow  their 
morsel,  and  become  tranquil,  glorious,  and  great. 
And  who  has  not  seen  the  tragedy  of  imprudent  ge 
nius,  struggling  for  years  with  paltry  pecuniary  diffi 
culties,  at  last  sinking,  chilled,  exhausted,  and  fruitless, 
like  a  giant  slaughtered  by  pins  ? 

Is  it  not  better  that  a  man  should  accept  the  first 
pains  and  mortifications  of  this  sort,  which  nature  is 
not  slack  in  sending  him,  as  hints  that  he  must  expect 
no  other  good  than  the  just  fruit  of  his  own  labor  and 
self-denial  ?  Health,  bread,  climate,  social  position, 
have  their  importance,  and  he  will  give  them  their 
due.  Let  him  esteem  Nature  a  perpetual  counsellor, 
and  her  perfections  the  exact  measure  of  our  devia 
tions.  Let  him  make  the  night,  night,  and  the  day, 
day.  Let  him  control  the  habit  of  expense.  Let 
him  see  that  as  much  wisdom  may  be  expended 
on  a  private  economy,  as  on  an  empire,  and  as 
much  wisdom  may  be  drawn  from  it.  The  laws 
of  the  world  are  written  out  for  him  on  every  piece 
of  money  in  his  hand.  There  is  nothing  he  will  not 
be  the  better  for  knowing,  were  it  only  the  wisdom  of 
Poor  Richard  ;  or  the  State-street  prudence  of  buying 
9 


194  ESSAY    VII. 

by  the  acre,  to  sell  by  the  foot ;  or  the  thrift  of  the 
agriculturist,  to  stick  a  tree  between  whiles,  because 
it  will  grow  whilst  he  sleeps  ;  or  the  prudence  which 
consists  in  husbanding  little  strokes  of  the  tool,  little 
portions  of  time,  particles  of  stock,  and  small  gains. 
The  eye  of  prudence  may  never  shut.  Iron,  if  kept 
at  the  ironmonger's,  will  rust.  Beer,  if  not  brewed 
in  the  right  state  of  the  atmosphere,  will  sour.  Tim 
ber  of  ships  will  rot  at  sea,  or,  if  laid  up  high  and 
dry,  will  strain,  warp,  and  dry-rot.  Money,  if  kept 
by  us,  yields  no  rent,  and  is  liable  to  loss  ;  if  invested, 
is  liable  to  depreciation  of  the  particular  kind  of  stock. 
Strike,  says  the  smith,  the  iron  is  white.  Keep  the 
rake,  says  the  haymaker,  as  nigh  the  scythe  as  you 
can,  and  the  cart  as  nigh  the  rake.  Our  Yankee 
trade  is  reputed  to  be  very  much  on  the  extreme  of 
this  prudence.  It  saves  itself  by  its  activity.  It 
takes  bank  notes  —  good,  bad,  clean,  ragged,  and 
saves  itself  by  the  speed  with  which  it  passes  them 
off.  Iron  cannot  rust,  nor  beer  sour,  nor  timber  rot, 
nor  calicoes  go  out  of  fashion,  nor  money  stocks  de 
preciate,  in  the  few  swift  moments  which  the  Yankee 
suffers  any  one  of  them  to  remain  in  his  possession. 
In  skating  over  thin  ice,  our  safety  is  in  our  speed. 

Let  him  learn  a  prudence  of  a  higher  strain.  Let 
him  learn  that  every  thing  in  nature,  even-  motes  and 
feathers,  go  by  law  and  not  by  luck,  and  that  what 
he  sows,  he  reaps.  By  diligence  and  self-command, 
let  him  put  the  bread  he  eats  at  his  own  disposal,  and 
not  at  that  of  others,  that  he  may  not  stand  in  bitter 
and  false  relations  to  other  men  ;  for  the  best  good  of 


PRUDENCE.  195 

wealth  is  freedom.  Let  him  practise  the  minor  vir 
tues.  How  much  of  human  life  is  lost  in  waiting ! 
Let  him  not  make  his  fellow  creatures  wait.  How 
many  words  and  promises  are  promises  of  conversa 
tion  !  Let  his  be  words  of  fate.  When  he  sees  a 
folded  and  sealed  scrap  of  paper  float  round  the 
globe  in  a  pine  ship,  and  come  safe  to  the  eye  for 
which  it  was  written,  amidst  a  swarming  population  ; 
let  him  likewise  feel  the  admonition  to  integrate  his 
being  across  all  these  distracting  forces,  and  keep  a 
slender  human  word  among  the  storms,  distances, 
and  accidents,  that  drive  us  hither  and  thither,  and, 
by  persistency,  make  the  paltry  force  of  one  man 
reappear  to  redeem  its  pledge,  after  months  and  years, 
in  the  most  distant  climates. 

We  must  not  try  to  write  the  laws  of  any  one  vir 
tue,  looking  at  that  only.  Human  nature  loves  no 
contradictions,  but  is  symmetrical.  The  prudence 
which  secures  an  outward  well-being,  is  not  to  be 
studied  by  one  set  of  men,  whilst  heroism  and  holi 
ness  are  studied  by  another,  but  they  are  reconcilable. 
Prudence  concerns  the  present  time,  persons,  property, 
and  existing  forms.  But  as  every  fact  hath  its  roots 
in  the  soul,  and  if  the  soul  were  changed,  would 
cease  to  be,  or  would  become  some  other  thing,  there 
fore,  the  proper  administration  of  outward  things  will 
always  rest  on  a  just  apprehension  of  their  cause 
and  origin,  that  is,  the  good  man  will  be  the  wise 
man,  and  the  single-hearted,  the  politic  man.  Every 
violation  of  truth  is  not  only  a  sort  of  suicide  in  the 
liar,  but  is  a  stab  at  the  health  of  human  society. 


196  ESSAY    VII. 

On  the  most  profitable  lie,  the  course  of  events  pre 
sently  lays  a  destructive  tax  ;  whilst  frankness  proves 
to  be  the  best  tactics,  for  it  invites  frankness,  puts  the 
parties  on  a  convenient  footing,  and  makes  their  busi 
ness  a  friendship.  Trust  men,  and  they  will  be  true 
to  you  ;  treat  them  greatly,  and  they  will  show  them 
selves  great,  though  they  make  an  exception  in  your 
favor  to  all  their  rules  of  trade. 

So,  in  regard  to  disagreeable  and  formidable  things, 
prudence  does  not  consist  in  evasion,  or  in  flight,  but 
in  courage.  He  who  wishes  to  walk  in  the  most 
peaceful  parts  of  life  with  any  serenity,  must  screw 
himself  up  to  resolution.  Let  him  front  the  object  of 
his  worst  apprehension,  and  his  stoutness  will  com 
monly  make  his  fear  groundless.  The  Latin  proverb 
says,  that  "  in  battles,  the  eye  is  first  overcome." 
The  eye  is  daunted,  and  greatly  exaggerates  the  perils 
of  the  hour.  Entire  self-possession  may  make  a 
battle  very  little  more  dangerous  to  life  than  a  match 
at  foils  or  at  foot-ball.  Examples  are  cited  by  sol 
diers,  of  men  who  have  seen  the  cannon  pointed,  and 
the  fire  given  to  it,  and  who  have  stepped  aside  from 
the  path  of  the  ball.  The  terrors  of  the  storm  are 
chiefly  confined  to  the  parlor  and  the  cabin.  The 
drover,  the  sailor,  buffets  it  all  day,  and  his  health 
renews  itself  at  as  vigorous  a  pulse  under  the  sleet, 
as  under  the  sun  of  June. 

In  the  occurrence  of  unpleasant  things  among  neigh 
bors,  fear  comes  readily  to  heart,  and  magnifies  the 
consequence  of  the  other  party ;  but  it  is  a  bad  coun 
sellor.  Every  man  is  actually  weak,  and  apparently 


PRUDENCE.  197 

strong.  To  himself,  he  seems  weak  ;  to  others,  for 
midable.  You  are  afraid  of  Grim  ;  but  Grim  also  is 
afraid  of  you.  You  are  solicitous  of  the  good  will  of 
the  meanest  person,  uneasy  at  his  ill  will.  But  the 
sturdiest  offender  of  your  peace  and  of  the  neighbor 
hood,  if  you  rip  up  his  claims,  is  as  thin  and  timid  as 
any  ;  and  the  peace  of  society  is  often  kept,  because, 
as  children  say,  one  is  afraid,  and  the  other  dares  not. 
Far  off,  men  swell,  bully,  and  threaten :  bring  them 
hand  to  hand,  and  they  are  a  feeble  folk. 

It  is  a  proverb,  that  '  courtesy  costs  nothing  ;'  but 
calculation  might  come  to  value  love  for  its  profit. 
Love  is  fabled  to  be  blind  ;  but  kindness  is  necessary 
to  perception ;  love  is  not  a  hood,  but  an  eye- water. 
If  you  meet  a  sectary,  or  a  hostile  partisan,  never 
recognise  the  dividing  lines  ;  but  meet  on  what  com 
mon  ground  remains,  —  if  only  that  the  sun  shines, 
and  the  rain  rains  for  both,  —  the  area  will  widen 
very  fast,  and  ere  you  know  it,  the  boundary  moun 
tains,  on  which  the  eye  had  fastened,  have  melted 
into  air.  If  he  set  out  to  contend,  almost  St.  Paul 
will  lie,  almost  St.  John  will  hate.  What  low,  poor, 
paltry,  hypocritical  people,  an  argument  on  religion 
will  make  of  the  pure  and  chosen  souls.  Shuffle 
they  will,  and  crow,  crook,  and  hide,  feign  to  confess 
here,  only  that  they  may  brag  and  conquer  there, 
and  not  a  thought  has  enriched  either  party,  and  not 
an  emotion  of  bravery,  modesty,  or  hope.  So  neither 
should  you  put  yourself  in  a  false  position  to  your 
contemporaries,  by  indulging  a  vein  of  hostility  and 
bitterness.  Though  your  views  are  in  straight  antag- 


198  ESSAY-  vn. 

onism  to  theirs,  assume  an  identity  of  sentiment,  as 
sume  that  you  are  saying  precisely  that  which  all 
think,  and  in  the  flow  of  wit  and  love,  roll  out  your 
paradoxes  in  solid  column,  with  not  the  infirmity  of 
a  doubt.  So  at  least  shall  you  get  an  adequate  deliv 
erance.  The  natural  motions  of  the  soul  are  so  much 
better  than  the  voluntary  ones,  that  you  will  never  do 
yourself  justice  in  dispute.  The  thought  is  not  then 
taken  hold  of  by  the  right  handle,  does  not  show  itself 
proportioned,  and  in  its  true  bearings,  but  bears  extorted, 
hoarse,  and  half  witness.  But  assume  a  consent,  and 
it  shall  presently  be  granted,  since,  really,  and  under 
neath  all  their  external  diversities,  all  men  are  of  one 
heart  and  mind. 

Wisdom  will  never  let  us  stand  with  any  man  or 
men,  on  an  unfriendly  footing.  We  refuse  sympathy 
and  intimacy  with  people,  as  if  we  waited  for  some 
better  sympathy  and  intimacy  to  come.  But  whence 
and  when?  To-morrow  will  be  like  to-day.  Life 
wastes  itself  whilst  we  are  preparing  to  live.  Our 
friends  and  fellow-workers  die  off  from  us.  Scarcely 
can  we  say,  we  see  new  men,  new  women  approach 
ing  us.  We  are  too  old  to  regard  fashion,  too  old  to 
expect  patronage  of  any  greater,  or  more  powerful. 
Let  us  suck  the  sweetness  of  those  affections  and 
consuetudes  that  grow  near  us.  These  old  shoes  are 
easy  to  the  feet.  Undoubtedly,  we  can  easily  pick 
faults  in  our  company,  can  easily  whisper  names 
prouder,  and  that  tickle  the  fancy  more.  Every 
man's  imagination  hath  its  friends ;  and  pleasant 
would  life  be  with  such  companions.  But,  if  you 


PRUDENCE.  199 

cannot  have  them  on  good  mutual  terms,  you  cannot 
have  them.  If  not  the  Deity,  but  our  ambition  hews 
and  shapes  the  new  relations,  their  virtue  escapes,  as 
strawberries  lose  their  flavor  in  garden  beds. 

Thus  truth,  frankness,  courage,  love,  humility,  and 
all  the  virtues  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  pru 
dence,  or  the  art  of  securing  a  present  well-being. 
I  do  not  know  if  all  matter  will  be  found  to  be  made 
of  one  element,  as  oxygen  or  hydrogen,  at  last,  but 
the  world  of  manners  and  actions  is  wrought  of  one 
stuff,  and  begin  where  we  will,  we  are  pretty  sure  in 
a  short  space,  to  be  mumbling  our  ten  command 
ments. 


HEROISM. 


"  Paradise  is  under  the  shadow  of  swords." 

Mahomet. 


9* 


ESSAY   VIII. 
HEROISM. 


IN  the  elder  English  dramatists,  and  mainly  in  the 
plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  there  is  a  constant 
recognition  of  gentility,  as  if  a  noble  behavior  were 
as  easily  marked  in  the  society  of  their  age,  as  color 
is  in  our  American  population.  When  any  Rodrigo, 
Pedro,  or  Valerio  enters,  though  he  be  a  stranger,  the 
duke  or  governor  exclaims,  This  is  a  gentleman, — and 
proffers  civilities  without  end ;  but  all  the  rest  are 
slag  and  refuse.  In  harmony  with  this  delight  in  per 
sonal  advantages,  there  is  in  their  plays  a  certain  he 
roic  cast  of  character  and  dialogue,  —  as  in  Bonduca, 
Sophocles,  the  Mad  Lover,  the  Double  Marriage, — 
wherein  the  speaker  is  so  earnest  and  cordial,  and  on 
such  deep  grounds  of  character,  that  the  dialogue,  on 
the  slightest  additional  incident  in  the  plot,  rises  natu 
rally  into  poetry.  Among  many  texts,  take  the  follow 
ing.  The  Roman  Martius  has  conquered  Athens,  — 


204  ESSAY    VIII. 

all  but  the  invincible  spirits  of  Sophocles,  the  duke  of 
Athens,  and  Dorigen,  his  wife.  The  beauty  of  the 
latter  inflames  Martius,  and  he  seeks  to  save  her  hus 
band  ;  but  Sophocles  will  not  ask  his  life,  although 
assured  that  a  word  will  save  him,  and  the  execution 
of  both  proceeds. 

Valerius.     Bid  thy  wife  farewell. 

Soph.     No,  I  will  take  no  leave.     My  Dorigen, 
Yonder,  above,  'bout  Ariadne's  crown, 
My  spirit  shall  hover  for  thee.     Prithee,  haste. 

Dor.     Stay,  Sophocles, —  with  this,  tie  up  my  sight ; 
Let  not  soft  nature  so  transformed  be, 
And  lose  her  gentler  sexed  humanity, 
To  make  me  see  my  lord  bleed.     So,  't  is  well ; 
Never  one  object  underneath  the  sun 
Will  I  behold  before  my  Sophocles  : 
Farewell;  now  teach  the  Romans  how  to  die. 

Mar.     Dost  know  what  'tis  to  die  ? 

Soph.     Thou  dost  not,  Martius, 
And  therefore,  not  what  't  is  to  live  ;  to  die 
Is  to  begin  to  live.     It  is  to  end 
An  old,  stale,  weary  work,  and  to  commence 
A  newer,  and  a  better.     'T  is  to  leave 
Deceitful  knaves  for  the  society 
Of  gods  and  goodness.     Thou,  thyself,  must  part 
At  last,  from  all  thy  garlands,  pleasures,  triumphs, 
And  prove  thy  fortitude  what  then  't  will  do. 

Vol.     But  art  not  grieved  nor  vexed  to  leave  thy  life  thus  ? 

Soph.     Why  should  I  grieve  or  vex  for  being  sent 
To  them  I  ever  loved  best  ?     Now  I  '11  kneel, 
But  with  my  back  toward  thee  ;  '  tis  the  last  duty 
This  trunk  can  do  the  gods. 

Mar.     Strike,  strike,  Valerius, 
Or  Martius'  heart  will  leap  out  at  his  mouth  : 
This  is  a  man,  a  woman  !     Kiss  thy  lord, 
And  live  with  all  the  freedom  you  were  wont. 


HEROISM.  205 

0  love  !  thou  doubly  hast  afflicted  me 

With  virtue  and  with  beauty.     Treacherous  heart, 
My  hand  shall  cast  thee  quick  into  my  urn, 
Ere  thou  transgress  this  knot  of  piety. 

Val.     What  ails  my  brother  ? 

Soph.     Martius,  oh  Martius, 
Thou  now  hast  found  a  way  to  conquer  me. 

Dor.     O  star  of  Rome  !  what  gratitude  can  speak 
Fit  words  to  follow  such  a  deed  as  this  ? 

Mar.     This  admirable  duke,  Valerius, 
With  his  disdain  of  fortune  and  of  death, 
Captived  himself,  has  captivated  me, 
And  though  my  arm  hath  ta'en  his  body  here, 
His  soul  hath  subjugated  Martius'  soul. 
By  Romulus,  he  is  all  soul,  I  think  ; 
He  hath  no  flesh,  and  spirit  cannot  be  gyved ; 
Then  we  have  vanquished  nothing ;  he  is  free, 
And  Martius  walks  now  in  captivity. 

1  do  not  readily  remember  any  poem,  play,  sermon, 
novel,  or  oration,  that  our  press  vents  in  the  last  few 
years,  which  goes  to  the  same  tune.     We  have  a  great 
many  flutes  and  flageolets,  but  not  often  the  sound  of 
any  fife.     Yet,  Wordsworth's  Laodamia,  and  the  ode 
of  "  Dion,"  and  some  sonnets,  have  a  certain  noble 
music ;  and  Scott  will  sometimes  draw  a  stroke  like 
the  portrait  of  Lord  Evandale,  given  by  Balfour  of 
Burley.     Thomas  Carlyle,  with  his  natural  taste  for 
what  is  manly  and  daring  in  character,  has  suffered 
no  heroic  trait  in  his  favorites  to  drop  from  his  bio 
graphical    and   historical  pictures.      Earlier,  Robert 
Burns  has  given  us  a  song  or  two.     In  the  Harleian 
Miscellanies,   there   is    an  account  of  the   battle   of 
Lutzen,    which   deserves  to    be   read.      And   Simon 
Ockley's    History    of    the    Saracens,    recounts   the 


206  ESSAY    VIII. 

prodigies  of  individual  valor  with  admiration,  all 
the  more  evident  on  the  part  of  the  narrator,  that  he 
seems  to  think  that  his  place  in  Christian  Oxford 
requires  of  him  some  proper  protestations  of  abhor 
rence.  But  if  we  explore  the  literature  of  Heroism, 
we  shall  quickly  come  to  Plutarch,  who  is  its  Doctor 
and  historian.  To  him  we  owe  the  Brasidas,  the 
Dion,  the  Epaminondas,  the  Scipio  of  old,  and  I  must 
think  we  are  more  deeply  indebted  to  him  than  to  all 
the  ancient  writers.  Each  of  his  "  Lives  "  is  a  refu 
tation  to  the  despondency  and  cowardice  of  our  reli 
gious  and  political  theorists.  A  wild  courage,  a  sto 
icism  not  of  the  schools,  but  of  the  blood,  shines  in 
every  anecdote,  and  has  given  that  book  its  immense 
fame. 

We  need  books  of  this  tart  cathartic  virtue,  more 
than  books  of  political  science,  or  of  private  economy. 
Life  is  a  festival  only  to  the  wise.  Seen  from  the 
nook  and  chimney-side  of  prudence,  it  wears  a  rag 
ged  and  dangerous  front.  The  violations  of  the  laws 
of  nature  by  our  predecessors  and  our  contempora 
ries,  are  punished  in  us  also.  The  disease  and  de 
formity  around  us,  certify  the  infraction  of  natural, 
intellectual,  and  moral  laws,  and  often  violation  on 
violation  to  breed  such  compound  misery.  A  lock 
jaw,  that  bends  a  man's  head  back  to  his  heels,  hydro 
phobia,  that  makes  him  bark  at  his  w'ife  and  babes, 
insanity,  that  makes  him  eat  grass ;  war,  plague, 
cholera,  famine,  indicate  a  certain  ferocity  in  nature, 
which,  as  it  had  its  inlet  by  human  crime,  must  have 
its  outlet  by  human  suffering.  Unhappily,  almost  no 


HEROISM.  207 

man  exists,  who  has  not  in  his  own  person,  become  to 
some  amount,  a  stockholder  in  the  sin,  and  so  made 
himself  liable  to  a  share  in  the  expiation. 

Our  culture,  therefore,  must  not  omit  the  arming 
of  the  man.  Let  him  hear  in  season,  that  he  is  born 
into  the  state  of  war,  and  that  the  commonwealth 
and  his  own  well-being,  require  that  he  should  not  go 
dancing  in  the  weeds  of  peace,  but  warned,  self-col 
lected,  and  neither  defying  nor  dreading  the  thunder, 
let  him  take  both  reputation  and  life  in  his  hand,  and 
with  perfect  urbanity,  dare  the  gibbet  and  the  mob  by 
the  absolute  truth  of  his  speech,  and  the  rectitude  of 
his  behavior. 

Towards  all  this  external  evil,  the  man  within  the 
breast  assumes  a  warlike  attitude,  and  affirms  his 
ability  to  cope  single-handed  with  the  infinite  army  of 
enemies.  To  this  military  attitude  of  the  soul,  we 
give  the  name  of  Heroism.  Its  rudest  form  is  the 
contempt  for  safety  and  ease,  which  makes  the  at 
tractiveness  of  war.  It  is  a  self-trust  which  slights 
the  restraints  of  prudence  in  the  plenitude  of  its 
energy  and  power  to  repair  the  harms  it  may  suffer. 
The  hero  is  a  mind  of  such  balance  that  no  disturb 
ances  can  shake  his  will,  but  pleasantly,  and,  as  it 
were,  merrily,  he  advances  to  his  own  music,  alike  in 
frightful  alarms,  and  in  the  tipsy  mirth  of  universal 
dissoluteness.  There  is  somewhat  not  philosophical 
in  heroism  ;  there  is  somewhat  not  holy  in  it :  it 
seems  not  to  know  that  other  souls  are  of  one  texture 
with  it ;  it  hath  pride  ;  it  is  the  extreme  of  individual 
nature.  Nevertheless,  we  must  profoundly  revere  it. 


208  ESSAY    VIII. 

There  is  somewhat  in  great  actions,  which  does  not 
allow  us  to  go  behind  them.  Heroism  feels  and  never 
reasons,  and  therefore  is  always  right,  and,  although 
a  different  breeding,  different  religion,  and  greater 
intellectual  activity,  would  have  modified,  or  even  re 
versed  the  particular  action,  yet  for  the  hero,  that 
thing  he  does,  is  the  highest  deed,  and  is  not  open  to 
the  censure  of  philosophers  or  divines.  It  is  the 
avowal  of  the  unschooled  man,  that  he  finds  a  quality 
in  him  that  is  negligent  of  expense,  of  health,  of  life, 
of  danger,  of  hatred,  of  reproach,  and  that  he  knows 
that  his  will  is  higher  and  more  excellent  than  all 
actual  and  all  possible  antagonists. 

Heroism  works  in  contradiction  to  the  voice  of 
mankind,  and  in  contradiction,  for  a  time,  to  the 
voice  of  the  great  and  good.  Heroism  is  an  obedi 
ence  to  a  secret  impulse  of  an  individual's  character. 
Now  to  no  other  man  can  its  wisdom  appear  as  it 
does  to  him,  for  every  man  must  be  supposed  to  see 
a  little  farther  on  his  own  proper  path,  than  any  one 
else.  Therefore,  just  and  wise  men  take  umbrage  at 
his  act,  until  after  some  little  time  be  past :  then,  they 
see  it  to  be  in  unison  with  their  acts.  All  prudent 
men  see  that  the  action  is  clean  contrary  to  a  sensual 
prosperity ;  for  every  heroic  act  measures  itself  by 
its  contempt  of  some  external  good.  But  it  finds  its 
own  success  at  last,  and  then  the  prudent  also  extol. 

Self- trust  is  the  essence  of  heroism.  It  is  the  state 
of  the  soul  at  war,  and  its  ultimate  objects  are  the  last 
defiance  of  falsehood  and  wrong,  and  the  power  to 
bear  all  that  can  be  inflicted  by  evil  agents.  It  speaks 


HEROISM.  209 

the  truth,  and  it  is  just.  It  is  generous,  hospitable, 
temperate,  scornful  of  petty  calculations,  and  scornful 
of  being  scorned.  It  persists  ;  it  is  of  an  undaunted 
boldness,  and  of  a  fortitude  not  to  be  wearied  out. 
Its  jest  is  the  littleness  of  common  life.  That  false 
prudence  which  dotes  on  health  and  wealth,  is  the  foil, 
the  butt  and  merriment  of  heroism.  Heroism,  like 
Plotinus,  is  almost  ashamed  of  its  body.  What  shall 
it  say,  then,  to  the  sugar-plums,  and  cats'-cradles, 
to  the  toilet,  compliments,  quarrels,  cards,  and  cus 
tard,  which  rack  the  wit  of  all  human  society.  What 
joys  has  kind  nature  provided  for  us  dear  creatures  ! 
There  seems  to  be  no  interval  between  greatness  and 
meanness.  When  the  spirit  is  not  master  of  the 
world,  then  is  it  its  dupe.  Yet  the  little  man  takes 
the  great  hoax  so  innocently,  works  in  it  so  headlong 
and  believing,  is  born  red,  and  dies  gray,  arranging 
his  toilet,  attending  on  his  own  health,  laying  traps 
for  sweet  food  and  strong  wine,  setting  his  heart  on 
a  horse  or  a  rifle,  made  happy  with  a  little  gossip,  or 
a  little  praise,  that  the  great  soul  cannot  choose  but 
laugh  at  such  earnest  nonsense.  "  Indeed,  these 
humble  considerations  make  me  out  of  love  with 
greatness.  What  a  disgrace  is  it  to  me  to  take  note 
how  many  pairs  of  silk  stockings  thou  hast,  namely, 
these  and  those  that  were  the  peach-colored  ones,  or 
to  bear  the  inventory  of  thy  shirts,  as  one  for  super 
fluity,  and  one  other  for  use." 

Citizens,  thinking  after  the  laws  of  arithmetic,  con 
sider  the  inconvenience  of  receiving  strangers  at  their 
fireside,  reckon  narrowly  the  loss  of  time  and  the 


210  ESSAY    VIII. 

unusual  display :  the  soul  of  a  better  quality  thrusts 
back  the  unseasonable  economy  into  the  vaults  of 
life,  and  says,  I  will  obey  the  God,  and  the  sacrifice 
and  the  fire  he  will  provide.  Ibn  Hankal,  the 
Arabian  geographer,  describes  a  heroic  extreme  in 
the  'hospitality  of  Sogd,  in  Bukharia.  "  When  I 
was  in  Sogd,  I  saw  a  great  building,  like  a  palace, 
the  gates  of  which  were  open  and  fixed  back  to  the 
wall  with  large  nails.  I  asked  the  reason,  and  was 
told  that  the  house  had  not  been  shut  night  or  day, 
for  a  hundred  years.  Strangers  may  present  them 
selves  at  any  hour,  and  in  whatever  number ;  the 
master  has  amply  provided  for  the  reception  of  the 
men  and  their  animals,  and  is  never  happier  than 
when  they  tarry  for  some  time.  Nothing  of  the  kind 
have  I  seen  in  any  other  country."  The  magnani 
mous  know  very  well  that  they  who  give  time,  or 
money,  or  shelter,  to  the  stranger  —  so  it  be  done  for 
love,  and  not  for  ostentation  —  do,  as  it  were,  put  God 
under  obligation  to  them,  so  perfect  are  the  compen 
sations  of  the  universe.  In  some  way,  the  time  they 
seem  to  lose,  is  redeemed,  and  the  pains  they  seem 
to  take,  remunerate  themselves.  These  men  fan 
the  flame  of  human  love  and  raise  the  standard  of 
civil  virtue  among  mankind.  But  hospitality  must  be 
for  service,  and  not  for  show,  or  it  pulls  down  the 
host.  The  brave  soul  rates  itself  too  high  to  value 
itself  by  the  splendor  of  its  table  and  draperies.  It 
gives  what  it  hath,  and  all  it  hath,  but  its  own  majesty 
can  lend  a  better  grace  to  bannocks  and  fair  water, 
than  belong  to  city  feasts. 


HEROISM,  211 

The  temperance  of  the  hero,  proceeds  from  the 
same  wish  to  do  no  dishonor  to  the  worthiness  he  has. 
But  he  loves  it  for  its  elegancy,  not  for  its  austerity. 
It  seems  not  worth  his  while  to  be  solemn,  and  de 
nounce  with  bitterness  flesh-eating,  or  wine-drinking, 
the  use  of  tobacco,  or  opium,  or  tea,  or  silk,  or  gold.  A 
great  man  scarcely  knows  how  he  dines,  how  he  dresses, 
but  without  railing  or  precision,  his  living  is  natural  and 
poetic.  John  Eliot,  the  Indian  Apostle,  drank  water, 
and  said  of  wine,  u  It  is  a  noble,  generous  liquor,  and 
we  should  be  humbly  thankful  for  it,  but,  as  I  remem 
ber,  water  was  made  before  it."  Better  still,  is  the 
temperance  of  king  David,  who  poured  out  on  the 
ground  unto  the  Lord,  the  water  which  three  of  his 
warriors  had  brought  him  to  drink,  at  the  peril  of  their 
lives. 

It  is  told  of  Brutus,  that  when  he  fell  on  his  sword, 
after  the  battle  of  Philippi,  he  quoted  a  line  of  Eurip 
ides,  "  O  virtue,  I  have  followed  thee  through  life, 
and  I  find  thee  at  last  but  a  shade."  I  doubt  not  the 
hero  is  slandered  by  this  report.  The  heroic  soul 
does  not  sell  its  justice  and  its  nobleness.  It  does  not 
ask  to  dine  nicely,  and  to  sleep  warm.  The  essence 
of  greatness  is  the  perception  that  virtue  is  enough. 
Poverty  is  its  ornament.  Plenty,  it  does  not  need, 
and  can  very  well  abide  its  loss. 

But  that  which  takes  my  fancy  most,  in  the  heroic 
class,  is  the  good  humor  and  hilarity  they  exhibit.  It 
is  a  height  to  which  common  duty  can  very  well  at 
tain,  to  suffer  and  to  dare  with  solemnity.  But  these 
rare  souls  set  opinion,  success,  and  life,  at  so  cheap  a 


212  ESSAY     VIII. 

rate,  that  they  will  not  soothe  their  enemies  by  peti 
tions,  or  the  show  of  sorrow,  but  wear  their  own 
habitual  greatness.  Scipio,  charged  with  peculation, 
refuses  to  do  himself  so  great  a  disgrace,  as  to  wait 
for  justification,  though  he  had  the  scroll  of  his  ac 
counts  in  his  hands,  but  tears  it  to  pieces  before  the 
tribunes.  Socrates'  condemnation  of  himself  to  be 
maintained  in  all  honor  in  the  Prytaneum,  during  his 
life,  and  Sir  Thomas  More's  playfulness  at  the  scaffold, 
are  of  the  same  strain.  In  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
"  Sea  Voyage,"  Juletta  tells  the  stout  captain  and  his 
company, 

Jul.     Why,  slaves,  'tis  in  our  power  to  hang  ye. 
Master.  Very  likely, 

'T  is  in  our  powers,  then,  to  be  hanged,  and  scorn  ye. 

These  replies  are  sound  and  whole.  Sport  is  the 
bloom  and  glow  of  a  perfect  health.  The  great 
will  not  condescend  to  take  any  thing  seriously  ; 
all  must  be  as  gay  as  the  song  of  a  canary,  though 
it  were  the  building  of  cities  or  the  eradication  of 
old  and  foolish  churches  and  nations,  which  have 
cumbered  the  earth  long  thousands  of  years.  Sim 
ple  hearts  put  all  the  history  and  customs  of  this 
world  behind  them,  and  play  their  own  play  in  inno 
cent  defiance  of  the  Blue -Laws  of  the  world ;  and 
such  would  appear,  could  we  see  the  human  race  assem 
bled  in  vision,  like  little  children  frolicking  together, 
though,  to  the  eyes  of  mankind  at  large,  they  wear  a 
stately  and  solemn  garb  of  works  and  influences. 
The  interest  these  fine  stories  have  for  us,  the 


HEROISM.  213 

power  of  a  romance  over  the  boy  who  grasps  the 
forbidden  book  under  his  bench  at  school,  our  delight 
in  the  hero,  is  the  main  fact  to  our  purpose.  All  these 
great  and  transcendent  properties  are  ours.  If  we 
dilate  in  beholding  the  Greek  energy,  the  Roman 
pride,  it  is  that  we  are  already  domesticating  the  same 
sentiment.  Let  us  find  room  for  this  great  guest  in 
our  small  houses.  The  first  step  of  worthiness  will 
be  to  disabuse  us  of  our  superstitious  associations 
with  places  and  times,  with  number  and  size.  Why 
should  these  words,  Athenian,  Roman,  Asia,  and 
England,  so  tingle  in  the  ear.  Let  us  feel  that  where 
the  heart  is,  there  the  muses,  there  the  gods  sojourn, 
and  not  in  any  geography  of  fame.  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut  River,  and  Boston  Bay,  you  think  paltry 
places,  and  the  ear  loves  names  of  foreign  and  classic 
topography.  But  here  we  are  ;  —  that  is  a  great  fact, 
and,  if  we  will  tarry  a  little,  we  may  come  to  learn 
that  here  is  best.  See  to  it,  only  that  thyself  is 
here  ;  — and  art  and  nature,  hope  and  dread,  friends, 
angels,  and  the  Supreme  Being,  shall  not  be  absent 
from  the  chamber  where  thou  sittest.  Epaminondas, 
brave  and  affectionate,  does  not  seem  to  us  to  need 
Olympus  to  die  upon,  nor  the  Syrian  sunshine.  He 
lies  very  well  where  he  is.  The  Jerseys  were  hand 
some  ground  enough  for  Washington  to  tread,  and 
London  streets  for  the  feet  of  Milton.  A  great  man 
illustrates  his  place,  makes  his  climate  genial  in  the 
imagination  of  men,  and  its  air  the  beloved  element 
of  all  delicate  spirits.  That  country  is  the  fairest, 
which  is  inhabited  by  the  noblest  minds.  The  pictures 


214  ESSAY    VIII. 

which  fill  the  imagination  in  reading  the  actions  of 
Pericles,  Xenophon,  Columbus,  Bayard,  Sidney, 
Hampden,  teach  us  how  needlessly  mean  our  life  is, 
that  we,  by  the  depth  of  our  living,  should  deck  it 
with  more  than  regal  or  national  splendor,  and  act  on 
principles  that  should  interest  man  and  nature  in  the 
length  of  our  days. 

We  have  seen  or  heard  of  many  extraordinary 
young  men,  who  never  ripened,  or  whose  perform 
ance  in  actual  life,  was  not  extraordinary.  When  we 
see  their  air  and  mien,  when  we  hear  them  speak  of 
society,  of  books,  of  religion,  we  admire  their  supe* 
riority,  they  seem  to  throw  contempt  on  the  whole 
state  of  the  world  ;  theirs  is  the  tone  of  a  youthful 
giant,  who  is  sent  to  work  revolutions.  But  they  en 
ter  an  active  profession,  and  the  forming  Colossus 
shrinks  to  the  common  size  of  man.  The  magic  they 
used,  was  the  ideal  tendencies,  which  always  make  the 
Actual  ridiculous  ;  but  the  tough  world  had  its  revenge 
the  moment  they  put  their  horses  of  the  sun  to  plough 
in  its  furrow.  They  found  no  example  and  no  com 
panion,  and  their  heart  fainted.  What  then  ?  The 
lesson  they  gave  in  their  first  aspirations,  is  yet  true, 
and  a  better  valor,  and  a  purer  truth,  shall  one  day 
execute  their  will,  and  put  the  world  to  shame.  Or 
why  should  a  woman  liken  herself  to  any  historical 
woman,  and  think,  because  Sappho,  or  Sevigne,  or 
De  Stael,  or  the  cloistered  souls  who  have  had  genius 
and  cultivation,  do  not  satisfy  the  imagination,  and  the 
serene  Themis,  none  can,  —  certainly  not  she.  Why 
not  ?  She  has  a  new  and  unattempted  problem  to 


HEROISM.  215 

solve,  perchance  that  of  the  happiest  nature  that  ever 
bloomed.  Let  the  maiden,  with  erect  soul,  walk  se 
renely  on  her  way,  accept  the  hint  of  each  new  ex 
perience,  try,  in  turn,  all  the  gifts  God  offers  her, 
that  she  may  learn  the  power  and  the  charm,  that 
like  a  new  dawn  radiating  out  of  the  deep  of  space, 
her  new-born  being  is.  The  fair  girl,  who  repels  in 
terference  by  a  decided  and  proud  choice  of  influ 
ences,  so  careless  of  pleasing,  so  wilful  and  lofty, 
inspires  every  beholder  with  somewhat  of  her  own 
nobleness.  The  silent  heart  encourages  her  ;  O  friend, 
never  strike  sail  to  a  fear.  Come  into  port  greatly, 
or  sail  with  God  the  seas.  Not  in  vain  you  live,  for 
every  passing  eye  is  cheered  and  refined  by  the 
vision. 

The  characteristic  of  a  genuine  heroism  is  its  per 
sistency.  All  men  have  wandering  impulses,  fits  and 
starts  of  generosity.  But  when  you  have  resolved  to 
be  great,  abide  by  yourself,  and  do  not  weakly  try  to 
reconcile  yourself  with  the  world.  The  heroic  can 
not  be  the  common,  nor  the  common  the  heroic.  Yet 
we  have  the  weakness  to  expect  the  sympathy  of  peo 
ple  in  those  actions  whose  excellence  is  that  they  out 
run  sympathy,  and  appeal  to  a  tardy  justice.  If  you 
would  serve  your  brother,  because  it  is  fit  for  you  to 
serve  him,  do  not  take  back  your  Words  when  you 
find  that  prudent  people  do  not  commend  you.  Be 
true  to  your  own  act,  and  congratulate  yourself  if  you 
have  done  something  strange  and  extravagant,  and 
broken  the  monotony  of  a  decorous  age.  It  was  a 
high  counsel  that  I  once  heard  given  to  a  young  per- 


ESSAY    VIII. 

son,  "  Always  do  what  you  are  afraid  to  do."  A 
simple  manly  character  need  never  make  an  apology, 
but  should  regard  its  past  action  with  the  calmness  of 
Phocion,  when  he  admitted  that  the  event  of  the  battle 
was  happy,  yet  did  not  regret  his  dissuasion  from  the 
battle. 

There  is  no  weakness  or  exposure  for  which  we 
cannot  find  consolation  in  the  thought,  —  this  is  a  part 
of  my  constitution,  part  of  my  relation  and  office  to 
my  fellow  creature.  Has  nature  covenanted  with  me 
that  I  should  never  appear  to  disadvantage,  never 
make  a  ridiculous  figure  ?  Let  us  be  generous  of 
our  dignity,  as  well  as  of  our  money.  Greatness 
once  and  forever  has  done  with  opinion.  We  tell  our 
charities,  not  because  we  wish  to  be  praised  for  them, 
not  because  we  think  they  have  great  merit,  but  for 
our  justification.  It  is  a  capital  blunder ;  as  you  dis 
cover,  when  another  man  recites  his  charities. 

To  speak  the  truth,  even  with  some  austerity,  to 
live  with  some  rigor  of  temperance,  or  some  extremes 
of  generosity,  seems  to  be  an  asceticism  which  com 
mon  good  nature  would  appoint  to  those  who  are  at 
ease  and  in  plenty,  in  sign  that  they  feel  a  brother 
hood  with  the  great  multitude  of  suffering  men.  And 
not  only  need  we  breathe  and  exercise  the  soul  by 
assuming  the  penalties  of  abstinence,  of  debt,  of  sol 
itude,  of  unpopularity,  but  it  behoves  the  wise  man 
to  look  with  a  bold  eye  into  those  rarer  dangers  which 
sometimes  invade  men,  and  to  familiarize  himself  with 
disgusting  forms  of  disease,  with  sounds  of  execra 
tion,  and  the  vision  of  violent  death. 


HEROISM.  217 

Times  of  heroism  are  generally  times  of  terror, 
but  the  day  never  shines,  in  which  this  element  may 
not  work.  The  circumstances  of  man,  we  say,  are 
historically  somewhat  better  in  this  country,  and  at 
this  hour,  than  perhaps  ever  before.  More  freedom 
exists  for  culture.  It  will  not  now  run  against  an  axe, 
at  the  first  step  out  of  the  beaten  track  of  opinion. 
But  whoso  is  heroic,  will  always  find  crises  to  try  his 
edge.  Human  virtue  demands  her  champions  and 
martyrs,  and  the  trial  of  persecution  always  proceeds. 
It  is  but  the  other  day,  that  the  brave  Lovejoy  gave 
his  breast  to  the  bullets  of  a  mob,  for  the  rights  of 
free  speech  and  opinion,  and  died  when  it  was  better 
not  to  live. 

I  see  not  any  road  of  perfect  peace,  which  a  man 
can  walk  but  to  take  counsel  of  his  own  bosom.  Let 
him  quit  too  much  association,  let  him  go  home  much, 
and  stablish  himself  in  those  courses  he  approves. 
The  unremitting  retention  of  simple  and  high  senti 
ments  in  obscure  duties,  is  hardening  the  character  to 
that  temper  which  will  work  with  honor,  if  need  be, 
in  the  tumult,  or  on  the  scaffold .  Whatever  outrages 
have  happened  to  men,  may  befall  a  man  again  :  and 
very  easily  in  a  republic,  if  there  appear  any  signs 
of  a  decay  of  religion.  Coarse  slander,  fire,  tar  and 
feathers,  and  the  gibbet,  the  youth  may  freely  bring 
home  to  his  mind,  and  with  what  sweetness  of  temper 
he  can,  and  inquire  how  fast  he  can  fix  his  sense  of 
duty,  braving  such  penalties,  whenever  it  may  please 
the  next  newspaper,  and  a  sufficient  number  of  his 
neighbors  to  pronounce  his  opinions  incendiary. 
10 


218  ESSAY    VIII. 

It  may  calm  the  apprehension  of  calamity  in  the 
most  susceptible  heart,  to  see  how  quick  a  bound  na 
ture  has  set  to  the  utmost  infliction  of  malice.  We 
rapidly  approach  a  brink  over  which  no  enemy  can 
follow  us. 

"  Let  them  rave  : 
Thou  art  quiet  in  thy  grave." 

In  the  gloom  of  our  ignorance  of  what  shall  be,  in 
the  hour  when  we  are  deaf  to  the  higher  voices,  who 
does  not  envy  them  who  have  seen  safely  to  an  end 
their  manful  endeavor  ?  Who  that  sees  the  mean 
ness  of  our  politics,  but  inly  congratulates  Washing 
ton,  that  he  is  long  already  wrapped  in  his  shroud, 
and  forever  safe  ;  that  he  was  laid  sweet  in  his  grave, 
the  hope  of  humanity  not  yet  subjugated  in  him  ? 
Who  does  not  sometimes  envy  the  good  and  brave, 
who  are  no  more  to  suffer  from  the  tumults  of  the 
natural  world,  and  await  with  curious  complacency 
the  speedy  term  of  his  own  conversation  with  finite 
nature  ?  And  yet  the  love  that  will  be  annihilated 
sooner  than  treacherous,  has  already  made  death  im 
possible,  and  affirms  itself  no  mortal,  but  a  native  of 
the  deeps  of  absolute  and  inextinguishable  being. 


THE    OVER-SOUL 


"  But  souls  that  of  his  own  good  life  partake, 
He  loves  as  his  own  self;  dear  as  his  eye 
They  are  to  Him  :  He  '11  never  them  forsake  : 
When  they  shall  die,  then  God  himself  shall  die  : 
They  live,  they  live  in  blest  eternity." 

Henry  More. 


ESSAY   IX. 
THE    OVER-SOUL 


THERE  is  a  difference  between  one  and  another  hour 
of  life,  in  their  authority  and  subsequent  effect.  Our 
faith  comes  in  moments  ;  our  vice  is  habitual.  Yet 
is  there  a  depth  in  those  brief  moments,  which  con 
strains  us  to  ascribe  more  reality  to  them  than  to  all 
other  experiences.  For  this  reason,  the  argument, 
which  is  always  forthcoming  to  silence  those  who 
conceive  extraordinary  hopes  of  man,  namely,  the 
appeal  to  experience,  is  forever  invalid  and  vain.  A 
mightier  hope  abolishes  despair.  We  give  up  the 
past  to  the  objector,  and  yet  we  hope.  He  must  ex 
plain  this  hope.  We  grant  that  human  life  is  mean  ; 
but  how  did  we  find  out  that  it  was  mean  ?  What  is 
the  ground  of  this  uneasiness  of  ours  ;  of  this  old 
discontent  ?  What  is  the  universal  sense  of  want  and 
ignorance,  but  the  fine  inuendo  by  which  the  great 
soul  makes  its  enormous  claim  ?  Why  do  men  feel 


222  ESSAY    IX. 

that  the  natural  history  of  man  has  never  been  writ 
ten,  but  always  he  is  leaving  behind  what  you  have 
said  of  him,  and  it  becomes  old,  and  books  of  meta 
physics  worthless  ?  The  philosophy  of  six  thousand 
years  has  not  searched  the  chambers  and  magazines 
of  the  soul.  In  its  experiments  there  has  always  re 
mained,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  residuum  it  could  not 
resolve.  Man  is  a  stream  whose  source  is  hidden. 
Always  our  being  is  descending  into  us  from  we  know 
not  whence.  The  most  exact  calculator  has  no  pre 
science  that  somewhat  incalculable  may  not  baulk  the 
very  next  moment.  I  am  constrained  every  moment 
to  acknowledge  a  higher  origin  for  events  than  the 
will  I  call  mine. 

As  with  events,  so  is  it  with  thoughts.  When  I 
watch  that  flowing  river,  which,  out  of  regions  I  see 
not,  pours  for  a  season  its  streams  into  me,  —  I  see 
that  I  am  a  pensioner,  —  not  a  cause,  but  a  surprised 
spectator  of  this  ethereal  water  ;  that  I  desire  and  look 
up,  and  put  myself  in  the  attitude  of  reception,  but 
from  some  alien  energy  the  visions  come. 

The  Supreme  Critic  on  all  the  errors  of  the  past 
and  the  present,  and  the  only  prophet  of  that  which 
must  be,  is  that  great  nature  in  which  we  rest,  as  the 
earth  lies  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  atmosphere  ;  that 
Unity,  that  Over-Soul,  within  which  every  man's  par 
ticular  being  is  contained  and  made  one  with  all  other ; 
that  common  heart,  of  which  all  sincere  conversation 
is  the  worship,  to  which  all  right  action  is  submission  ; 
that  overpowering  reality  which  confutes  our  tricks 
and  talents,  and  constrains  every  one  to  pass  for  what 


THE     OVER-SOUL.  223 

he  is,  and  to  speak  from  his  character  and  not  from 
his  tongue  ;  and  which  evermore  tends  and  aims  to 
pass  into  our  thought  and  hand,  and  become  wisdom, 
and  virtue,  and  power,  and  beauty.  We  live  in  suc 
cession,  in  division,  in  parts,  in  particles.  Meantime 
within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole  ;  the  wise  si 
lence  ;  the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every  part  and 
particle  is  equally  related  ;  the  eternal  ONE.  And 
this  deep  power  in  which  we  exist,  and  whose  beati 
tude  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not  only  self-sufficing 
and  perfect  in  every  hour,  but  the  act  of  seeing,  and 
the  thing  seen,  the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  the  subject 
and  the  object,  are  one.  We  see  the  world  piece  by 
piece,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the  tree  ; 
but  the  whole,  of  which  these  are  the  shining  parts, 
is  the  soul.  It  is  only  by  the  vision  of  that  Wisdom, 
that  the  horoscope  of  the  ages  can  be  read,  and  it  is 
only  by  falling  back  on  our  better  thoughts,  by  yield 
ing  to  the  spirit  of  prophecy  which  is  innate  in  every 
man,  that  we  can  know  what  it  saith.  Every  man's 
words,  who  speaks  from  that  life,  must  sound  vain  to 
those  who  do  not  dwell  in  the  same  thought  on  their 
own  part.  I  dare  not  speak  for  it,  My  words  do  not 
carry  its  august  sense  ;  they  fall  short  and  cold.  Only 
itself  can  inspire  whom  it  will,  and  behold  !  their 
speech  shall  be  lyrical,  and  sweet,  and  universal  as 
the  rising  of  the  wind.  Yet  I  desire,  even  by  pro 
fane  words,  if  sacred  I  may  not  use,  to  indicate  the 
heaven  of  this  deity,  and  to  report  what  hints  I  have 
collected  of  the  transcendent  simplicity  and  energy  of 
the  Highest  Law. 


224  ESSAY    IX. 

If  we  consider  what  happens  in  conversation,  in 
reveries,  in  remorse,  in  times  of  passion,  in  surprises, 
in  the  instructions  of  dreams  wherein  often  we  see 
ourselves  in  masquerade,  —  the  droll  disguises  only 
magnifying  and  enhancing  a  real  element,  and  forcing 
it  on  our  distinct  notice,  —  we  shall  catch  many  hints 
that  will  broaden  and  lighten  into  knowledge  of  the 
secret  of  nature.  All  goes  to  show  that  the  soul  in 
man  is  not  an  organ,  but  animates  and  exercises  all 
the  organs  ;  is  not  a  function,  like  the  power  of  mem 
ory,  of  calculation,  of  comparison,  — but  uses  these 
as  hands  and  feet ;  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  light ;  is  not 
the  intellect  or  the  will,  but  the  master  of  the  intellect 
and  the  will ; — is  the  vast  back-ground  of  our  being, 
in  which  they  lie,  —  an  immensity  not  possessed  and 
that  cannot  be  possessed.  From  within  or  from  be 
hind,  a  light  shines  through  us  upon  things,  and  makes 
us  aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the  light  is  all.  A 
man  is  the  fafade  of  a  temple  wherein  all  wisdom  and 
all  good  abide.  What  we  commonly  call  man,  the 
eating,  drinking,  planting,  counting  man,  does  not,  as 
we  know  him,  represent  himself,  but  misrepresents 
himself.  Him  we  do  not  respect,  but  the  soul,  whose 
organ  he  is,  would  he  let  it  appear  through  his  action, 
would  make  our  knees  bend.  When  it  breathes 
through  his  intellect,  it  is  genius ;  when  it  breathes 
through  his  will,  it  is  virtue ;  when  it  flows  through 
his  affection,  it  is  love.  And  the  blindness  of  the 
intellect  begins,  when  it  would  be  something  of 
itself.  The  weakness  of  the  will  begins  when  the 
individual  would  be  something  of  himself.  All  re- 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  225 

form  aims,  in  some  one  particular,  to  let  the  great  soul 
have  its  way  through  us  ;  in  other  words,  to  engage 
us  to  obey. 

Of  this  pure  nature  every  man  is  at  some  time 
sensible.  Language  cannot  paint  it  with  his  colors. 
It  is  too  subtle.  It  is  undefinable,  unmeasureable,  but 
we  know  that  it  pervades  and  contains  us.  We  know 
that  all  spiritual  being  is  in  man.  A  wise  old  pro 
verb  says,  "  God  comes  to  see  us  without  bell :  " 
that  is,  as  there  is  no  screen  or  ceiling  between  our 
heads  and  the  infinite  heavens,  so  is  there  no  bar  or 
wall  in  the  soul  where  man,  the  effect,  ceases,  and 
God,  the  cause,  begins.  The  walls  are  taken  away. 
We  lie  open  on  one  side  to  the  deeps  of  spiritual  na 
ture,  to  all  the  attributes  of  God.  Justice  we  see  and 
know,  Love,  Freedom,  Power.  These  natures  no 
man  ever  got  above,  but  always  they  tower  over  us, 
and  most  in  the  moment  when  our  interests  tempt  us 
to  wound  them. 

The  sovereignty  of  this  nature  whereof  we  speak, 
is  made  known  by  its  independency  of  those  limita 
tions  which  circumscribe  us  on  every  hand.  The 
soul  circumscribeth  all  things.  As  I  have  said,  it  con 
tradicts  all  experience.  In  like  manner  it  abolishes 
time  and  space.  The  influence  of  the  senses  has,  in 
most  men,  overpowered  the  mind  to  that  degree,  that 
the  walls  of  time  and  space  have  come  to  look  solid, 
real  and  insurmountable  ;  and  to  speak  with  levity 
of  these  limits,  is,  in  the  world,  the  sign  of  insanity. 
Yet  time  and  space  are  but  inverse  measures  of  the 
10* 


226  ESSAY    IX. 

force  of  the  soul.      A  man  is  capable  of  abolishing 
them  both.     The  spirit  sports  with  time  — 

"  Can  crowd  eternity  into  an  hour, 
Or  stretch  an  hour  to  eternity." 

We  are  often  made  to  feel  that  there  is  another 
youth  and  age  than  that  which  is  measured  from  the 
year  of  our  natural  birth.  Some  thoughts  always 
find  us  young  and  keep  us  so.  Such  a  thought  is  the 
love  of  the  universal  and  eternal  beauty.  Every  man 
parts  from  that  contemplation  with  the  feeling  that  it 
rather  belongs  to  ages  than  to  mortal  life.  The  least 
activity  of  the  intellectual  powers  redeems  us  in  a  de 
gree  from  the  influences  of  time.  In  sickness,  in  lan 
guor,  give  us  a  strain  of  poetry  or  a  profound  sen 
tence,  and  we  are  refreshed  ;  or  produce  a  volume  of 
Plato,  or  Shakspeare,  or  remind  us  of  their  names, 
and  instantly  we  come  into  a  feeling  of  longevity. 
See  how  the  deep,  divine  thought  demolishes  centu 
ries,  and  millenniums,  and  makes  itself  present  through 
all  ages.  Is  the  teaching  of  Christ  less  effective  now 
than  it  was  when  first  his  mouth  was  opened  ?  The 
emphasis  of  facts  and  persons  to  my  soul  has  nothing  to 
do  with  time.  And  so,  always,  the  soul's  scale  is  one  ; 
the  scale  of  the  senses  and  the  understanding  is  an 
other.  Before  the  great  revelations  of  the  soul,  Time, 
Space  and  Nature  shrink  away.  In  common  speech, 
we  refer  all  things  to  time,  as  we  habitually  refer  the 
immensely  sundered  stars  to  one  concave  sphere. 
And  so  we  say  that  the  Judgment  is  distant  or  near, 
that  the  Millennium  approaches,  that  a  day  of  certain 
political,  moral,  social  reforms  is  at  hand,  and  the  like, 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  227 

when  we  mean,  that  in  the  nature  of  things,  one  of 
the  facts  we  contemplate  is  external  and  fugitive,  and 
the  other  is  permanent  and  connate  with  the  soul.  The 
things  we  now  esteem  fixed,  shall,  one  by  one,  detach 
themselves,  like  ripe  fruit,  from  our  experience,  and 
fall.  The  wind  shall  blow  them  none  knows  whither. 
The  landscape,  the  figures,  Boston,  London,  are  facts 
as  fugitive  as  any  institution  past,  or  any  whifF  of  mist 
or  smoke,  and  so  is  society,  and  so  is  the  world.  The 
soul  looketh  steadily  forwards,  creating  a  world  alway 
before  her,  and  leaving  worlds  alway  behind  her.  She 
has  no  dates,  nor  rites,  nor  persons,  nor  specialties, 
nor  men.  The  soul  knows  only  the  soul.  All  else  is 
idle  weeds  for  her  wearing. 

After  its  own  law  and  not  by  arithmetic  is  the  rate 
of  its  progress  to  be  computed.  The  soul's  advances 
are  not  made  by  gradation,  such  as  can  be  repre 
sented  by  motion  in  a  straight  line  ;  but  rather  by  as 
cension  of  state,  such  as  can  be  represented  by  meta 
morphosis,  —  from  the  egg  to  the  worm,  from  the 
worm  to  the  fly.  The  growths  of  genius  are  of  a 
certain  total  character,  that  does  not  advance  the 
elect  individual  first  over  John,  then  Adam,  then 
Richard,  and  give  to  each  the  pain  of  discovered  infe 
riority,  but  by  every  throe  of  growth,  the  man  ex 
pands  there  where  he  works,  passing,  at  each  pulsa 
tion,  classes,  populations  of  men.  With  each  divine 
impulse  the  mind  rends  the  thin  rinds  of  the  visible 
and  finite,  and  comes  out  into  eternity,  and  inspires 
and  expires  its  air.  It  converses  with  truths  that  have 
always  been  spoken  in  the  world,  and  becomes  con- 


228  ESSAY    IX. 

scious  of  a  closer  sympathy  with  Zeno  and  Arrian, 
than  with  persons  in  the  house. 

This  is  the  law  of  moral  and  of  mental  gain.  The 
simple  rise  as  by  specific  levity,  not  into  a  particular 
virtue,  but  into  the  region  of  all  the  virtues.  They 
are  in  the  spirit  which  contains  them  all.  The  soul  is 
superior  to  all  the  particulars  of  merit.  The  soul  re 
quires  purity,  but  purity  is  not  it ;  requires  justice,  but 
justice  is  not  that ;  requires  beneficence,  but  is  some 
what  better  :  so  that  there  is  a  kind  of  descent  and 
accommodation  felt  when  we  leave  speaking  of  moral 
nature,  to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  enjoins.  For,  to  the 
soul  in  her  pure  action,  all  the  virtues  are  natural,  and 
not  painfully  acquired.  Speak  to  his  heart,  and  the 
man  becomes  suddenly  virtuous. 

Within  the  same  sentiment  is  the  germ  of  intellect 
ual  growth,  which  obeys  the  same  law.  Those  who 
are  capable  of  humility,  of  justice,  of  love,  of  aspi 
ration,  are  already  on  a  platform  that  commands  the 
sciences  and  arts,  speech  and  poetry,  action  and  grace. 
For  whoso  dwells  in  this  moral  beatitude,  does  already 
anticipate  those  special  powers  which  men  prize  so 
highly  ;  just  as  love  does  justice  to  all  the  gifts  of  the 
object  beloved.  The  lover  has  no  talent,  no  skill, 
which  passes  for  quite  nothing  with  his  enamored 
maiden,  however  little  she  may  possess  of  related  fac 
ulty.  And  the  heart,  which  abandons  itself  to  the  Su 
preme  Mind,  finds  itself  related  to  all  its  works  and 
will  travel  a  royal  road  to  particular  knowledges  and 
powers.  For,  in  ascending  to  this  primary  and  abo 
riginal  sentiment,  we  have  come  from  our  remote  sta- 


THE    OVEK-SOUL.  229 

tion  on  the  circumference  instantaneously  to  the  cen 
tre  of  the  world,  where,  as  in  the  closet  of  God,  we 
see  causes,  and  anticipate  the  universe,  which  is  but 
a  slow  effect. 

One  mode  of  the  divine  teaching  is  the  incarnation 
of  the  spirit  in  a  form,  —  in  forms,  like  my  own.  1 
live  in  society  ;  with  persons  who  answer  to  thoughts 
in  my  own  mind,  or  outwardly  express  to  me  a  certain 
obedience  to  the  great  instincts  to  which  I  live.  I  see 
its  presence  to  them.  I  am  certified  of  a  common 
nature ;  and  so  these  other  souls,  these  separated 
selves,  draw  me  as  nothing  else  can.  They  stir  in 
me  the  new  emotions  we  call  passion  ;  of  love,  hatred, 
fear,  admiration,  pity  ;  thence  comes  conversation, 
competition,  persuasion,  cities,  and  war.  Persons  are 
supplementary  to  the  primary  teaching  of  the  soul. 
In  youth  we  are  mad  for  persons.  Childhood  and 
youth  see  all  the  world  in  them.  But  the  larger  ex 
perience  of  man  discovers  the  identical  nature  ap 
pearing  through  them  all.  Persons  themselves  ac 
quaint  us  with  the  impersonal.  In  all  conversation  be 
tween  two  persons,  tacit  reference  is  made  as  to  a 
third  party,  to  a  common  nature.  That  third  party 
or  common  nature  is  not  social ;  it  is  impersonal ;  is 
God.  And  so  in  groups  where  debate  is  earnest,  and 
especially  on  great  questions  of  thought,  the  company 
become  aware  of  their  unity  ;  aware  that  the  thought 
rises  to  an  equal  height  in  all  bosoms,  that  all  have  a 
spiritual  property  in  what  was  said,  as  well  as  the 
sayer.  They  all  wax  wiser  than  they  were.  It 
arches  over  them  like  a  temple,  this  unity  of  thought, 


230  ESSAY    IX. 

In  which  every  heart  beats  with  nobler  sense  of  power 
and  duty,  and  thinks  and  acts  with  unusual  solemnity. 
All  are  conscious  of  attaining  to  a  higher  self-posses 
sion.  It  shines  for  all.  There  is  a  certain  wisdom  of 
humanity  which  is  common  to  the  greatest  men  with 
the  lowest,  and  which  our  ordinary  education  often 
labors  to  silence  and  obstruct.  The  mind  is  one,  and 
the  best  minds  who  love  truth  for  its  own  sake,  think 
much  less  of  property  in  truth.  Thankfully  they  ac 
cept  it  everywhere,  and  do  not  label  or  stamp  it  with 
any  man's  name,  for  it  is  theirs  long  beforehand.  It 
is  theirs  from  eternity.  The  learned  and  the  studious 
of  thought  have  no  monopoly  of  wisdom.  Their  vio 
lence  of  direction  in  some  degree  disqualifies  them  to 
think  truly.  We  owe  many  valuable  observations  to 
people  who  are  not  very  acute  or  profound,  and  who 
say  the  thing  without  effort,  which  we  want  and  have 
long  been  hunting  in  vain.  The  action  of  the  soul  is 
oftener  in  that  which  is  felt  and  left  unsaid,  than  in 
that  which  is  said  in  any  conversation.  It  broods  over 
every  society,  and  they  unconsciously  seek  for  it  in 
each  other.  We  know  better  than  we  do.  We  do 
not  yet  possess  ourselves,  and  we  know  at  the  same 
time  that  we  are  much  more.  I  feel  the  same  truth 
how  often  in  my  trivial  conversation  with  my  neigh 
bors,  that  somewhat  higher  in  each  of  us  overlooks  this 
by-play,  and  Jove  nods  to  Jove  from  behind  each  of  us. 
Men  descend  to  meet.  In  their  habitual  and  mean 
service  to  the  world,  for  which  they  forsake  their  na 
tive  nobleness,  they  resemble  those  Arabian  Sheikhs, 
who  dwell  in  mean  houses  and  affect  an  external  po- 


THE  OVER-SOUL.  231 

verty,  to  escape  the  rapacity  of  the  Pacha,  and  re 
serve  all  their  display  of  wealth  for  their  interior  and 
guarded  retirements. 

As  it  is  present  in  all  persons,  so  it  is  in  every  pe 
riod  of  life.  It  is  adult  already  in  the  infant  man. 
In  my  dealing  with  my  child,  my  Latin  and  Greek, 
my  accomplishments  and  my  money,  stead  me  no 
thing.  They  are  all  lost  on  him  :  but  as  much  soul 
as  I  have,  avails.  If  I  am  merely  wilful,  he  gives  me 
a  Rowland  for  an  Oliver,  sets  his  will  against  mine, 
one  for  one,  and  leaves  me,  if  I  please,  the  degrada 
tion  of  beating  him  by  my  superiority  of  strength. 
But  if  I  renounce  my  will,  and  act  for  the  soul,  setting 
that  up  as  umpire  between  us  two,  out  of  his  young  eyes 
looks  the  same  soul ;  he  reveres  and  loves  with  me. 

The  soul  is  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of  truth. 
We  know  truth  when  we  see  it,  let  skeptic  and  scof» 
fer  say  what  they  choose.  Foolish  people  ask  you, 
when  you  have  spoken  what  they  do  not  wish  to  hear, 
1  How  do  you  know  it  is  truth,  and  not  an  error  of 
your  own?  '  We  know  truth  when  we  see  it,  from 
opinion,  as  we  know  when  we  are  awake  that  we  are 
awake.  It  was  a  grand  sentence  of  Emanuel  Swe- 
denborg,  which  would  alone  indicate  the  greatness  of 
that  man's  perception, — u  It  is  no  proof  of  a  man's 
understanding  to  be  able  to  affirm  whatever  he  pleases^ 
but  to  be  able  to  discern  that  what  is  true  is  true,  and 
that  what  is  false  is  false,  this  is  the  mark  and  char 
acter  of  intelligence."  In  the  book  I  read,  the  good 
thought  returns  to  me,  as  every  truth  will,  the  image 
of  the  whole  soul.  To  the  bad  thought  which  I  findi 


232  ESSAY    IX. 

in  it,  the  same  soul  becomes  a  discerning,  separating 
sword  and  lops  it  away.  We  are  wiser  than  we  know. 
If  we  will  not  interfere  with  our  thought,  but  will  act 
entirely,  or  see  how  the  thing  stands  in  God,  we  know 
the  particular  thing,  and  every  thing,  and  every  man. 
For,  the  Maker  of  all  things  and  all  persons,  stands 
behind  us,  and  casts  his  dread  omniscience  through  us 
over  things. 

But  beyond  this  recognition  of  its  own  in  particular 
passages  of  the  individual's  experience,  it  also  reveals 
truth.  And  here  we  should  seek  to  reinforce  ourselves 
by  its  very  presence,  and  to  speak  with  a  worthier, 
loftier  strain  of  that  advent.  For  the  soul's  commu 
nication  of  truth  is  the  highest  event  in  nature,  for  it 
then  does  not  give  somewhat  from  itself,  but  it  gives 
itself,  or  passes  into  and  becomes  that  man  whom  it 
enlightens  ;  or  in  proportion  to  that  truth  he  receives, 
it  takes  him  to  itself. 

We  distinguish  the  announcements  of  the  soul,  its 
manifestations  of  its  own  nature,  by  the  term  Revela 
tion.  These  are  always  attended  by  the  emotion  of 
the  sublime.  For  this  communication  is  an  influx 
of  the  Divine  mind  into  our  mind.  It  is  an  ebb  of  the 
individual  rivulet  before  the  flowing  surges  of  the  sea 
of  life.  Every  distinct  apprehension  of  this  central 
commandment  agitates  men  with  awe  and  delight.  A 
thrill  passes  through  all  men  at  the  reception  of  new 
truth,  or  at  the  performance  of  a  great  action,  which 
comes  out  of  the  heart  of  nature.  In  these  com 
munications,  the  power  to  see,  is  not  separated  from 
the  will  to  do,  but  the  insight  proceeds  from  obedi- 


THE    OVER- SOUL.  233 

ence,  and  the  obedience  proceeds  from  a  joyful  per 
ception.  Every  moment  when  the  individual  feels 
himself  invaded  by  it,  is  memorable.  Always,  I  be 
lieve,  by  the  necessity  of  our  constitution,  a  certain 
enthusiasm  attends  the  individual's  consciousness  of 
that  divine  presence.  The  character  and  duration 
of  this  enthusiasm  varies  with  the  state  of  the  indivi 
dual,  from  an  extasy  and  trance  and  prophetic  inspi 
ration,  —  which  is  its  rarer  appearance,  to  the  faintest 
glow  of  virtuous  emotion,  in  which  form  it  warms, 
like  our  household  fires,  all  the  families  and  associa 
tions  of  men,  and  makes  society  possible.  A  certain 
tendency  to  insanity  has  always  attended  the  opening 
of  the  religious  sense  in  men,  as  if  "  blasted  with  ex 
cess  of  light."  The  trances  of  Socrates ;  the  "  union  " 
of  Plotinus ;  the  vision  of  Porphyry  ;  the  conversion 
of  Paul  ;  the  aurora  of  Behmen ;  the  convulsions  of 
George  Fox  and  his  Quakers  ;  the  illumination  of  Swe- 
denborg  ;  are  of  this  kind.  What  was  in  the  case  of 
these  remarkable  persons  a  ravishment,  has,  in  innu 
merable  instances  in  common  life,  been  exhibited  in  less 
striking  manner.  Everywhere  the  history  of  religion 
betrays  a  tendency  to  enthusiasm.  The  rapture  of  the 
Moravian  and  Quietist ;  the  opening  of  the  internal 
sense  of  the  Word,  in  the  language  of  the  New  Jerusa 
lem  Church  ;  the  revival  of  the  Calvinistic  Churches ; 
the  experiences  of  the  Methodists,  are  varying  forms  of 
that  shudder  of  awe  and  delight  with  which  the  indi 
vidual  soul  always  mingles  with  the  universal  soul. 

The  nature  of  these  revelations  is  always  the  same  : 
they  are  perceptions  of  the  absolute  law.      They  are 


234  ESSAY    IX. 

solutions  of  the  soul's  own  questions.  They  do  not 
answer  the  questions  which  the  understanding  asks.. 
The  soul  answers  never  by  words,  but  by  the  thing 
itself  that  is  inquired  after. 

Revelation  is  the  disclosure  of  the  soul.  The 
popular  notion  of  a  revelation,  is,  that  it  is  a  telling  of 
fortunes.  In  past  oracles  of  the  soul,  the  understand 
ing  seeks  to  find  answers  to  sensual  questions,  and 
undertakes  to  tell  from  God  how  long  men  shall  exist, 
what  their  hands  shall  do,  and  who  shall  be  their  com 
pany,  adding  even  names,  and  dates  and  places.  But 
we  must  pick  no  locks.  We  must  check  this  low  cu 
riosity.  An  answer  in  words  is  delusive  ;  it  is  really 
no  answer  to  the  questions  you  ask.  Do  not  ask  a 
description  of  the  countries  towards  which  you  sail. 
The  description  does  not  describe  them  to  you,  and 
to-morrow  you  arrive  there,  and  know  them  by  inhab 
iting  them.  Men  ask  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  the  employments  of  heaven,  and  the  state  of  the 
sinner,  and  so  forth.  They  even  dream  that  Jesus 
has  left  replies  to  precisely  these  interrogatories. 
Never  a  moment  did  that  sublime  spirit  speak  in  their 
patois.  To  truth,  justice,  love,  the  attributes  of  the 
soul,  the  idea  of  immutableness  is  essentially  associa 
ted.  Jesus,  living  in  these  moral  sentiments,  heedless 
of  sensual  fortunes,  heeding  only  the  manifestations  of 
these,  never  made  the  separation  of  the  idea  of  du 
ration  from  the  essence  of  these  attributes ;  never  ut 
tered  a  syllable  concerning  the  duration  of  the  soul. 
It  was  left  to  his  disciples  to  sever  duration  from  the 
moral  elements,  and  to  teach  the  immortality  of  the 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  235 

soul  as  a  doctrine,  and  maintain  it  by  evidences.  The 
moment  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  is  separately 
taught,  man  is  already  fallen.  In  the  flowing  of  love, 
in  the  adoration  of  humility,  there  is  no  question  of 
continuance.  No  inspired  man  ever  asks  this  ques 
tion,  or  condescends  to  these  evidences.  For  the  soul 
is  true  to  itself,  and  the  man  in  whom  it  is  shed  abroad, 
cannot  wander  from  the  present,  which  is  infinite,  to 
a  future,  which  would  be  finite. 

These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about  the  fu 
ture,  are  a  confession  of  sin.  God  has  no  answer  for 
them.  No  answer  in  words  can  reply  to  a  question 
of  things.  It  is  not  in  an  arbitrary  "  decree  of  God," 
but  in  the  nature  of  man  that  a  veil  shuts  down  on 
the  facts  of  to-morrow  :  for  the  soul  will  not  have  us 
read  any  other  cipher  but  that  of  cause  and  effect.  By 
this  veil,  which  curtains  events,  it  instructs  the  child- 
ren  of  men  to  live  in  to-day.  The  only  mode  of 
obtaining  an  answer  to  these  questions  of  the  senses, 
is,  to  forego  all  low  curiosity,  and,  accepting  the  tide 
of  being  which  floats  us  into  the  secret  of  nature, 
work  and  live,  work  and  live,  and  all  unawares,  the 
advancing  soul  has  built  and  forged  for  itself  a  new 
condition,  and  the  question  and  the  answer  are  one. 

Thus  is  the  soul  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of 
truth.  By  the  same  fire,  serene,  impersonal,  perfect, 
which  burns  until  it  shall  dissolve  all  things  into  the 
waves  and  surges  of  an  ocean  of  light,  —  we  see  and 
know  each  other,  and  what  spirit  each  is  of.  Who 
can  tell  the  grounds  of  his  knowledge  of  the  charac 
ter  of  the  several  individuals  in  his  circle  of  friends  ? 


236  ESSAY    IX. 

No  man.  Yet  their  acts  and  words  do  not  disappoint 
him.  In  that  man,  though  he  knew  no  ill  of  him,  he 
put  no  trust.  In  that  other,  though  they  had  seldom 
met,  authentic  signs  had  yet  passed,  to  signify  that  he 
might  be  trusted  as  one  who  had  an  interest  in  his  own 
character.  We  know  each  other  very  well,  —  which 
of  us  has  been  just  to  himself,  and  whether  that  which 
we  teach  or  behold,  is  only  an  aspiration,  or  is  our 
honest  effort  also. 

We  are  all  discerners  of  spirits.  That  diagnosis 
lies  aloft  in  our  life  or  unconscious  power,  not  in  the 
understanding.  The  whole  intercourse  of  society,  its 
trade,  its  religion,  its  friendships,  its  quarrels,  —  is  one 
wide,  judicial  investigation  of  character.  In  full 
court,  or  in  small  committee,  or  confronted  face  to 
face,  accuser  and  accused,  men  offer  themselves  to 
be  judged.  Against  their  will  they  exhibit  those 
decisive  trifles  by  which  character  is  read.  But  who 
judges  ?  and  what  ?  Not  our  understanding.  We 
do  not  read  them  by  learning  or  craft.  No  ;  the  wis 
dom  of  the  wise  man  consists  herein,  that  he  does  not 
judge  them  ;  he  lets  them  judge  themselves,  and 
merely  reads  and  records  their  own  verdict. 

By  virtue  of  this  inevitable  nature,  private  will  is 
overpowered,  and,  maugre  our  efforts,  or  our  imper 
fections,  your  genius  will  speak  from  you,  and  mine 
from  me.  That  which  we  are,  we  shall  teach,  not 
voluntarily,  but  involuntarily.  Thoughts  come  into 
our  minds  by  avenues  which  we  never  left  open,  and 
thoughts  go  out  of  our  minds  through  avenues  which 
we  never  voluntarily  opened.  Character  teaches 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  237 

over  our  head.  The  infallible  index  of  true  progress 
is  found  in  the  tone  the  man  takes.  Neither  his  age, 
nor  his  breeding,  nor  company,  nor  books,  nor  ac 
tions,  nor  talents,  nor  all  together,  can  hinder  him 
from  being  deferential  to  a  higher  spirit  than  his  own. 
If  he  have  not  found  his  home  in  God,  his  manners, 
his  forms  of  speech,  the  turn  of  his  sentences,  the 
build,  shall  I  say,  of  all  his  opinions  will  involuntarily 
confess  it,  let  him  brave  it  out  how  he  will.  If  he 
have  found  his  centre,  the  Deity  will  shine  through 
him,  through  all  the  disguises  of  ignorance,  of  unge- 
nial  temperament,  of  unfavorable  circumstance.  The 
tone  of  seeking,  is  one,  and  the  tone  of  having  is 
another. 

The  great  distinction  between  teachers  sacred  or 
literary  ;  between  poets  like  Herbert,  and  poets  like 
Pope ;  between  philosophers  like  Spinoza,  Kant,  and 
Coleridge,  —  and  philosophers  like  Locke,  Paley, 
Mackintosh,  and  Stewart ;  between  men  of  the  world 
who  are  reckoned  accomplished  talkers,  and  here  and 
there  a  fervent  mystic,  prophesying  half-insane  under 
the  infinitude  of  his  thought,  is,  that  one  class  speak 
from  within,  or  from  experience,  as  parties  and  pos 
sessors  of  the  fact ;  and  the  other  class,  from  with" 
out,  as  spectators  merely,  or  perhaps  as  acquainted 
with  the  fact,  on  the  evidence  of  third  persons.  It  is 
of  no  use  to  preach  to  me  from  without.  I  can  do 
that  too  easily  myself.  Jesus  speaks  always  from 
within,  and  in  a  degree  that  transcends  all  others.  In 
that,  is  the  miracle.  That  includes  the  miracle.  My 
soul  believes  beforehand  that  it  ought  so  to  be,  A1J 


238  ESSAY    IX. 

men  stand  continually  in  the  expectation  of  the  ap 
pearance  of  such  a  teacher.  But  if  a  man  do  not 
speak  from  within  the  veil,  where  the  word  is  one  with 
that  it  tells  of,  let  him  lowly  confess  it. 

The  same  Omniscience  flows  into  the  intellect,  and 
makes  what  we  call  genius.  Much  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  world  is  not  wisdom,  and  the  most  illuminated 
class  of  men  are  no  doubt  superior  to  literary  fame, 
and  are  not  writers.  Among  the  multitude  of  scholars 
and  authors,  we  feel  no  hallowing  presence  ;  we  are 
sensible  of  a  knack  and  skill  rather  than  of  inspiration  ; 
they  have  a  light,  and  know  not  whence  it  comes, 
and  call  it  their  own :  their  talent  is  some  exaggerated 
faculty,  some  overgrown  member,  so  that  their 
strength  is  a  disease.  In  these  instances,  the  intel 
lectual  gifts  do  not  make  the  impression  of  virtue,  but 
almost  of  vice  ;  and  we  feel  that  a  man's  talents  stand 
in  the  way  of  his  advancement  in  truth.  But  genius 
is  religious.  It  is  a  larger  imbibing  of  the  common 
heart.  It  is  not  anomalous,  but  more  like,  and  not 
less  like  other  men.  There  is  in  all  great  poets,  a 
wisdom  of  humanity,  which  is  superior  to  any  talents 
they  exercise.  The  author,  the  wit,  the  partisan,  the 
fine  gentleman,  does  not  take  place  of  the  man.  Hu 
manity  shines  in  Homer,  in  Chaucer,  in  Spenser,  in 
Shakspeare,  in  Milton.  They  are  content  with  truth. 
They  use  the  positive  degree.  They  seem  frigid  and 
phlegmatic  to  those  who  have  been  spiced  with  the 
frantic  passion  and  violent  coloring  of  inferior,  but 
popular  writers.  For,  they  are  poets  by  the  free 
course  which  they  allow  to  the  informing  soul,  which, 


THE     OVER-SOUL.  239 

though  their  eyes  beholdeth  again,  and  blesseth  the 
things  which  it  hath  made.  The  soul  is  superior  to 
its  knowledge  ;  wiser  than  any  of  its  works.  The 
great  poet  makes  us  feel  our  own  wealth,  and  then 
we  think  less  of  his  compositions.  His  greatest  com 
munication  to  our  mind,  is,  to  teach  us  to  despise  all 
he  has  done.  Shakspeare  carries  us  to  such  a  lofty 
strain  of  intelligent  activity,  as  to  suggest  a  wealth 
which  beggars  his  own ;  and  we  then  feel  that  the 
splendid  works  which  he  has  created,  and  which  in 
other  hours,  we  extol  as  a  sort  of  self-existent  poetry, 
take  no  stronger  hold  of  real  nature  than  the  shadow 
of  a  passing  traveller  on  the  rock.  The  inspiration 
which  uttered  itself  in  Hamlet  and  Lear,  could  utter 
things  as  good  from  day  to  day,  forever.  Why  then 
should  I  make  account  of  Hamlet  and  Lear,  as  if  we 
had  not  the  soul  from  which  they  fell  as  syllables 
from  the  tongue  ? 

This  energy  does  not  descend  into  individual  life, 
on  any  other  condition  than  entire  possession.  It 
comes  to  the  lowly  and  simple  ;  it  comes  to  whomso 
ever  will  put  off  what  is  foreign  and  proud  ;  it  comes 
as  insight ;  it  comes  as  serenity  and  grandeur.  When 
we  see  those  whom  it  inhabits,  we  are  apprised  of 
new  degrees  of  greatness.  From  that  inspiration 
the  man  comes  back  with  a  changed  tone.  He  does 
not  talk  with  men,  with  an  eye  to  their  opinion.  He 
tries  them.  It  requires  of  us  to  be  plain  and  true. 
The  vain  traveller  attempts  to  embellish  his  life  by 
quoting  my  Lord,  and  the  Prince,  and  the  Countess, 
who  thus  said  or  did  to  him.  The  ambitious  vulgar, 


240  ESSAY    IX. 

show  you  their  spoons,  and  brooches,  and  rings,  and 
preserve  their  cards  and  compliments.  The  more 
cultivated,  in  their  account  of  their  own  experience, 
cull  out  the  pleasing  poetic  circumstance ;  the  visit  to 
Rome ;  the  man  of  genius  they  saw ;  the  brilliant 
friend  they  know ;  still  further  on,  perhaps,  the  gor 
geous  landscape,  the  mountain  lights,  the  mountain 
thoughts,  they  enjoyed  yesterday,  —  and  so  seek  to 
throw  a  romantic  color  over  their  life.  But  the  soul 
that  ascendeth  to  worship  the  great  God,  is  plain  and 
true  ;  has  no  rose  color ;  no  fine  friends ;  no  chivalry  ; 
no  adventures  ;  does  not  want  admiration  ;  dwells  in 
the  hour  that  now  is,  in  the  earnest  experience  of  the 
common  day,  —  by  reason  of  the  present  moment, 
and  the  mere  trifle  having  become  porous  to  thought, 
and  bibulous  of  the  sea  of  light. 

Converse  with  a  mind  that  is  grandly  simple,  and 
literature  looks  like  word-catching.  The  simplest 
utterances  are  worthiest  to  be  written,  yet  are  they  so 
cheap,  and  so  things  of  course,  that  in  the  infinite 
riches  of  the  soul,  it  is  like  gathering  a  few  pebbles 
off  the  ground,  or  bottling  a  little  air  in  a  phial,  when 
the  whole  earth,  and  the  whole  atmosphere  are  ours. 
The  mere  author,  in  such  society,  is  like  a  pickpocket 
among  gentlemen,  who  has  come  in  to  steal  a  gold 
button  or  a  pin.  Nothing  can  pass  there,  or  make 
you  one  of  the  circle,  but  the  casting  aside  your 
trappings,  and  dealing  man  to  man  in  naked  truth, 
plain  confession  and  omniscient  affirmation. 

Souls,  such  as  these,  treat  you  as  gods  would  ; 
walk  as  gods  in  the  earth,  accepting  without  any  ad- 


THE     OVER-SOUL.  241 

miration,  your  wit,  your  bounty,  your  virtue,  even, 
say  rather  your  act  of  duty,  for  your  virtue  they  own 
as  their  proper  blood,  royal  as  themselves,  and  over- 
royal,  and  the  father  of  the  gods.  But  what  rebuke 
their  plain  fraternal  bearing  casts  on  the  mutual  flat 
tery  with  which  authors  solace  each  other,  and  wound 
themselves  !  These  flatter  not.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
these  men  go  to  see  Cromwell,  and  Christina,  and 
Charles  II.,  and  James  I.,  and  the  Grand  Turk.  For 
they  are  in  their  own  elevation,  the  fellows  of  kings, 
and  must  feel  the  servile  tone  of  conversation  in  the 
world.  They  must  always  be  a  godsend  to  princes, 
for  they  confront  them,  a  king  to  a  king,  without 
ducking  or  concession,  and  give  a  high  nature  the  re 
freshment  and  satisfaction  of  resistance,  of  plain  hu 
manity,  of  even  companionship,  and  of  new  ideas. 
They  leave  them  wiser  and  superior  men.  Souls  like 
these  make  us  feel  that  sincerity  is  more  excellent 
than  flattery.  Deal  so  plainly  with  man  and  woman, 
as  to  constrain  the  utmost  sincerity,  and  destroy  all 
hope  of  trifling  with  you.  It  is  the  highest  compli 
ment  you  can  pay.  Their  "  highest  praising,"  said 
Milton,  "  is  not  flattery,  and  their  plainest  advice  is  a 
kind  of  praising." 

Ineffable  is  the  union  of  man  and  God  in  every  act 
of  the  soul.  The  simplest  person,  who  in  his  integ 
rity  worships  God,  becomes  God  ;  yet  forever  and 
ever  the  influx  of  this  better  and  universal  self  is  new 
and  unsearchable.  Ever  it  inspires  awe  and  aston 
ishment.  How  dear,  how  soothing  to  man,  arises  the 
idea  of  God,  peopling  the  lonely  place,  effacing  the 
11 


242  ESSAY    IX. 

scars  of  our  mistakes  and  disappointments  !  When 
we  have  broken  our  god  of  tradition,  and  ceased  from 
our  god  of  rhetoric,  then  may  God  fire  the  heart  with 
his  presence.  It  is  the  doubling  of  the  heart  itself,  nay, 
the  infinite  enlargement  of  the  heart  with  a  power  of 
growth  to  a  new  infinity  on  every  side.  It  inspires  in  man 
an  infallible  trust.  He  has  not  the  conviction,  but  the 
sight  that  the  best  is  the  true,  and  may  in  that  thought 
easily  dismiss  all  particular  uncertainties  and  fears, 
and  adjourn  to  the  sure  revelation  of  time,  the  solu 
tion  of  his  private  riddles.  He  is  sure  that  his  wel 
fare  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  being.  In  the  presence 
of  law  to  his  mind,  he  is  overflowed  with  a  reliance 
so  universal,  that  it  sweeps  away  all  cherished  hopes 
and  the  most  stable  projects  of  mortal  condition  in  its 
flood.  He  believes  that  he  cannot  escape  from  his 
good.  The  things  that  are  really  for  thee,  gravitate 
to  thee.  You  are  running  to  seek  your  friend.  Let 
your  feet  run,  but  your  mind  need  not.  If  you  do 
not  find  him,  will  you  not  acquiesce  that  it  is  best  you 
should  not  find  him  ?  for  there  is  a  power,  which,  as 
it  is  in  you,  is  in  him  also,  and  could  therefore  very 
well  bring  you  together,  if  it  were  for  the  best.  You 
are  preparing  with  eagerness  to  go  and  render  a  ser 
vice  to  which  your  talent  and  your  taste  invite  you, 
the  love  of  men,  and  the  hope  of  fame.  Has  it  not 
occurred  to  you,  that  you  have  no  right  to  go,  unless 
you  are  equally  willing  to  be  prevented  from  going  ? 
O  believe,  as  thou  livest,  that  every  sound  that  is  spo 
ken  over  the  round  world,  which  thou  oughtest  to  hear, 
will  vibrate  on  thine  ear.  Every  proverb,  every  book, 


THE    OVER-SOUL.  243 

every  by-word  that  belongs  to  thee  for  aid  or  com 
fort,  shall  surely  come  home  through  open  or  winding 
passages.  Every  friend  whom  not  thy  fantastic  will, 
but  the  great  and  tender  heart  in  thee  craveth,  shall 
lock  thee  in  his  embrace.  And  this,  because  the 
heart  in  thee  is  the  heart  of  all ;  not  a  valve,  not  a 
wall,  not  an  intersection  is  there  any  where  in  nature, 
but  one  blood  rolls  uninterruptedly,  an  endless  circu 
lation  through  all  men,  as  the  water  of  the  globe  is 
all  one  sea,  and,  truly  seen,  its  tide  is  one. 

Let  man  then  learn  the  revelation  of  all  nature, 
and  all  thought  to  his  heart ;  this,  namely  ;  that  the 
Highest  dwells  with  him ;  that  the  sources  of  nature 
are  in  his  own  mind,  if  the  sentiment  of  duty  is  there. 
But  if  he  would  know  what  the  great  God  speaketh, 
he  must  'go  into  his  closet  and  shut  the  door,'  as 
Jesus  said.  God  will  not  make  himself  manifest  to 
cowards.  He  must  greatly  listen  to  himself,  with 
drawing  himself  from  all  the  accents  of  other  men's 
devotion.  Their  prayers  even  are  hurtful  to  him, 
until  he  have  made  his  own.  The  soul  makes  no  ap 
peal  from  itself.  Our  religion  vulgarly  stands  on 
numbers  of  believers.  Whenever  the  appeal  is 
made,  —  no  matter  how  indirectly,  —  to  numbers, 
proclamation  is  then  and  there  made,  that  religion  is 
not.  He  that  finds  God  a  sweet,  enveloping  thought 
to  him,  never  counts  his  company.  When  I  sit  in  that 
presence,  who  shall  dare  to  come  in  ?  When  I  rest 
in  perfect  humility,  when  I  burn  with  pure  love, — 
what  can  Calvin  or  Swedenborg  say  ? 

It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  appeal  is  to 


244  ESSAY    IX. 

numbers  or  to  one.  The  faith  that  stands  on  authority 
is  not  faith.  The  reliance  on  authority,  measures  the 
decline  of  religion,  the  withdrawal  of  the  soul.  The 
position  men  have  given  to  Jesus,  now  for  many  cen 
turies  of  history,  is  a  position  of  authority.  It  char 
acterizes  themselves.  It  cannot  alter  the  eternal 
facts.  Great  is  the  soul,  and  plain.  It  is  no  flatterer, 
it  is  no  follower  ;  it  never  appeals  from  itself.  It  al 
ways  believes  in  itself.  Before  the  immense  possi 
bilities  of  man,  all  mere  experience,  all  past  biogra 
phy,  however  spotless  and  sainted,  shrinks  away. 
Before  that  holy  heaven  which  our  presentiments 
foreshow  us,  we  cannot  easily  praise  any  form  of  life 
we  have  seen  or  read  of.  We  not  only  affirm  that 
we  have  few  great  men,  but  absolutely  speaking,  that 
we  have  none  ;  that  we  have  no  history,  no  record  of 
any  character  or  mode  of  living,  that  entirely  contents 
us.  The  saints  and  demigods  whom  history  worships, 
we  are  constrained  to  accept  with  a  grain  of  allow 
ance.  Though  in  our  lonely  hours,  we  draw  a  new 
strength  out  of  their  memory,  yet  pressed  on  our  at 
tention,  as  they  are  by  the  thoughtless  and  customary, 
they  fatigue  and  invade.  The  soul  gives  itself  alone, 
original,  and  pure,  to  the  Lonely,  Original  and  Pure, 
who,  on  that  condition,  gladly  inhabits,  leads,  and 
speaks  through  it.  Then  is  it  glad,  young,  and  nim 
ble.  It  is  not  wise,  but  it  sees  through  all  things.  It 
is  not  called  religious,  but  it  is  innocent-  It  calls  the 
light  its  own,  and  feels  that  the  grass  grows,  and  the 
stone  falls  by  a  law  inferior  to,  and  dependent  on  its 
nature.  Behold,  it  saith,  I  am  born  into  the  great,  the 


THE     OVER-SOUL.  245 

universal  mind.  I  the  imperfect,  adore  my  own  Per 
fect.  I  am  somehow  receptive  of  the  great  soul,  and 
thereby  I  do  overlook  the  sun  and  the  stars,  and  feel 
them  to  be  but  the  fair  accidents  and  effects  which 
change  and  pass.  More  and  more  the  surges  of  ever 
lasting  nature  enter  into  me,  and  I  become  public 
and  human  in  my  regards  and  actions.  So  come  I 
to  live  in  thoughts,  and  act  with  energies  which  are 
immortal.  Thus  revering  the  soul,  and  learning,  as 
the  ancient  said,  that  "  its  beauty  is  immense,"  man 
will  come  to  see  that  the  world  is  the  perennial  mira 
cle  which  the  soul  worketh,  and  be  less  astonished  at 
particular  wonders  ;  he  will  learn  that  there  is  no 
profane  history  ;  that  all  history  is  sacred  ;  that  the 
universe  is  represented  in  an  atom,  in  a  moment  of 
time.  He  will  weave  no  longer  a  spotted  life  of  shreds 
and  patches,  but  he  will  live  with  a  divine  unity.  He 
will  cease  from  what  is  base  and  frivolous  in  his  own 
life,  and  be  content  with  all  places  and  any  service 
he  can  render.  He  will  calmly  front  the  morrow  in 
the  negligency  of  that  trust  which  carries  God  with  it, 
and  so  hath  already  the  whole  future  in  the  bottom  of 
the  heart. 


CIRCLES 


ESSAY    X. 
CIRCLES 


THE  eye  is  the  first  circle  ;  the  horizon  which  it 
forms  is  the  second  ;  and  throughout  nature  this  pri 
mary  figure  is  repeated  without  end.  It  is  the  highest 
emblem  in  the  cipher  of  the  world.  St.  Augustine 
described  the  nature  of  God  as  a  circle  whose  centre 
was  everywhere,  and  its  circumference  nowhere. 
We  are  all  our  lifetime  reading  the  copious  sense  of 
this  first  of  forms.  One  moral  we  have  already  de 
duced  in  considering  the  circular  or  compensatory 
character  of  every  human  action.  Another  analogy 
we  shall  now  trace  ;  that  every  action  admits  of  being 
outdone.  Our  life  is  an  apprenticeship  to  the  truth, 
that  around  every  circle  another  can  be  drawn ;  that 
there  is  no  end  in  nature,  but  every  end  is  a  begin 
ning  ;  that  there  is  always  another  dawn  risen  on 
mid-noon,  and  under  every  deep  a  lower  deep  opens. 
This  fact,  as  far  as  it  symbolizes  the  moral  fact  of 
11* 


250  ESSAY    X. 

the  Unattainable,  the  flying  Perfect,  around  which  the 
hands  of  man  can  never  meet,  at  once  the  inspirer 
and  the  condemner  of  every  success,  may  conven 
iently  serve  us  to  connect  many  illustrations  of  hu 
man  power  in  every  department. 

There  are  no  fixtures  in  nature.  The  universe  is 
fluid  and  volatile.  Permanence  is  but  a  word  of  de 
grees.  Our  globe  seen  by  God,  is  a  transparent  law, 
not  a  mass  of  facts.  The  law  dissolves  the  fact  and 
holds  it  fluid.  Our  culture  is  the  predominance  of  an 
idea  which  draws  after  it  all  this  train  of  cities  and 
institutions.  Let  us  rise  into  another  idea  :  they  will 
disappear.  The  Greek  sculpture  is  all  melted  away, 
as  if  it  had  been  statues  of  ice  :  here  and  there  a 
solitary  figure  or  fragment  remaining,  as  we  see 
flecks  and  scraps  of  snow  left  in  cold  dells  and  moun 
tain  clefts,  in  June  and  July.  For,  the  genius  that 
created  it,  creates  now  somewhat  else.  The  Greek 
letters  last  a  little  longer,  but  are  already  passing  un 
der  the  same  sentence,  and  tumbling  into  the  inevita 
ble  pit  which  the  creation  of  new  thought  opens  for 
all  that  is  old.  The  new  continents  are  built  out  of 
the  ruins  of  an  old  planet :  the  new  races  fed  out  of 
the  decomposition  of  the  foregoing.  New  arts  de 
stroy  the  old.  See  the  investment  of  capital  in  aque 
ducts,  made  useless  by  hydraulics ;  fortifications,  by 
gunpowder  ;  roads  and  canals,  by  railways  ;  sails,  by 
steam  ;  steam  by  electricity. 

You  admire  this  tower  of  granite,  weathering  the 
hurts  of  so  many  ages.  Yet  a  little  waving  hand  built 
this  huge  wall,  and  that  which  builds,  is  better  than 


CIRCLES.  251 

that  which  is  built.  The  hand  that  built,  can  topple 
it  down  much  faster.  Better  than  the  hand,  and  nim 
bler,  was  the  invisible  thought  which  wrought  through 
it,  and  thus  ever  behind  the  coarse  effect,  is  a  fine 
cause,  which,  being  narrowly  seen,  is  itself  the  effect 
of  a  finer  cause.  Every  thing  looks  permanent  until 
its  secret  is  known.  A  rich  estate  appears  to  women 
and  children,  a  firm  and  lasting  fact ;  to  a  merchant, 
one  easily  created  out  of  any  materials,  and  easily 
lost.  An  orchard,  good  tillage,  good  grounds,  seem 
a  fixture,  like  a  gold  mine,  or  a  river,  to  a  citizen,  but 
to  a  large  farmer,  not  much  more  fixed  than  the  state 
of  the  crop.  Nature  looks  provokingly  stable  and 
secular,  but  it  has  a  cause  like  all  the  rest ;  and  when 
once  I  comprehend  that,  will  these  fields  stretch  so 
immovably  wide,  these  leaves  hang  so  individually 
considerable  ?  Permanence  is  a  word  of  degrees. 
Every  thing  is  medial.  Moons  are  no  more  bounds 
to  spiritual  power  than  bat-balls. 

The  key  to  every  man  is  his  thought.  Sturdy  and 
defying  though  he  look,  he  has  a  helm  which  he 
obeys,  which  is,  the  idea  after  which  all  his  facts  are 
classified.  He  can  only  be  reformed  by  showing  him 
a  new  idea  which  commands  his  own.  The  life  of 
man  is  a  self-evolving  circle,  which,  from  a  ring  im 
perceptibly  small,  rushes  on  all  sides  outwards  to  new 
and  larger  circles,  and  that  without  end.  The  extent 
to  which  this  generation  of  circles,  wheel  without 
wheel  will  go,  depends  on  the  force  or  truth  of  the  in 
dividual  soul.  For,  it  is  the  inert  effort  of  each  thought 
having  formed  itself  into  a  circular  wave  of  circum- 


252  ESSAY    X. 

stance,  as,  for  instance,  an  empire,  rules  of  an  art, 
a  local  usage,  a  religious  rite,  to  heap  itself  on  that 
ridge,  and  to  solidify,  and  hem  in  the  life.  But  if  the 
soul  is  quick  and  strong,  it  bursts  over  that  boundary 
on  all  sides,  and  expands  another  orbit  on  the  great 
deep,  which  also  runs  up  into  a  high  wave,  with 
attempt  again  to  stop  and  to  bind.  But  the  heart  re 
fuses  to  be  imprisoned  ;  in  its  first  and  narrowest 
pulses,  it  already  tends  outward  with  a  vast  force,  and 
to  immense  and  innumerable  expansions. 

Every  ultimate  fact  is  only  the  first  of  a  new 
series.  Every  general  law  only  a  particular  fact  of 
some  more  general  law  presently  to  disclose  itself. 
There  is  no  outside,  no  enclosing  wall,  no  cir 
cumference  to  us.  The  man  finishes  his  story,  —  how 
good  !  how  final  !  how  it  puts  a  new  face  on  all 
things  !  He  fills  the  sky.  Lo,  on  the  other  side,  rises 
also  a  man,  and  draws  a  circle  around  the  circle  we 
had  just  pronounced  the  outline  of  the  sphere.  Then 
already  is  our  first  speaker,  not  man,  but  only  a  first 
speaker.  His  only  redress  is  forthwith  to  draw  a  cir 
cle  outside  of  his  antagonist.  And  so  men  do  by 
themselves.  The  result  of  to-day  which  haunts  the 
mind  and,  cannot  be  escaped,  will  presently  be 
abridged  into  a  word,  and  the  principle  that  seemed  to 
explain  nature,  will  itself  be  included  as  one  exam 
ple  of  a  bolder  generalization.  In  the  thought  of  to 
morrow  there  is  a  power  to  upheave  all  thy  creed,  all 
the  creeds,  all  the  literatures  of  the  nations,  and  mar 
shal  thee  to  a  heaven  which  no  epic  dream  has  yet 
depicted.  Every  man  is  not  so  much  a  workman  in 


CIRCLES.  253 

the  world,  as  he  is  a  suggestion  of  that  he  should  be. 
Men  walk  as  prophecies  of  the  next  age. 

Step  by  step  we  scale  this  mysterious  ladder :  the 
steps  are  actions  ;  the  new  prospect  is  power.  Every 
several  result  is  threatened  and  judged  by  that  which 
follows.  Every  one  seems  to  be  contradicted  by  the 
new  ;  it  is  only  limited  by  the  new.  The  new  state 
ment  is  always  hated  by  the  old,  and,  to  those  dwell 
ing  in  the  old,  comes  like  an  abyss  of  skepticism. 
But  the  eye  soon  gets  wonted  to  it,  for  the  eye  and  it 
are  effects  of  one  cause  ;  then  its  innocency  and  benefit 
appear,  and,  presently,  all  its  energy  spent,  it  pales 
and  dwindles  before  the  revelation  of  the  new  hour. 

Fear  not  the  new  generalization.  Does  the  fact  look 
crass  and  material,  threatening  to  degrade  thy  theory 
of  spirit  ?  Resist  it  not ;  it  goes  to  refine  and  raise 
thy  theory  of  matter  just  as  much. 

There  are  no  fixtures  to  men,  if  we  appeal  to  con 
sciousness.  Every  man  supposes  himself  not  to  be 
fully  understood  ;  and  if  there  is  any  truth  in  him,  if 
he  rests  at  last  on  the  divine  soul,  I  see  not  how  it 
can  be  otherwise.  The  last  chamber,  the  last  closet, 
he  must  feel,  was  never  opened  ;  there  is  always  a 
residuum  unknown,  unanalyzable.  That  is,  every 
man  believes  that  he  has  a  greater  possibility. 

Our  moods  do  not  believe  in  each  other.  To-day, 
I  am  full  of  thoughts,  and  can  write  what  I  please.  I 
see  no  reason  why  I  should  not  have  the  same  thought, 
the  same  power  of  expression  to-morrow.  What  I 
write,  whilst  I  write  it,  seems  the  most  natural  thing  in 
the  world  :  but,  yesterday,  I  saw  a  dreary  vacuity  in 


254  ESSAY  X. 

this  direction  in  which  now  I  see  so  much  ;  and  a  month 
hence,  I  doubt  not,  I  shall  wonder  who  he  was  that 
wrote  so  many  continuous  pages.  Alas  for  this  infirm 
faith,  this  will  not  strenuous,  this  vast  ebb  of  a  vast 
flow !  I  am  God  in  nature  ;  I  am  a  weed  by  the 
wall. 

The  continual  effort  to  raise  himself  above  himself, 
to  work  a  pitch  above  his  last  height,  betrays  itself  in 
a  man's  relations.  We  thirst  for  approbation,  yet  can 
not  forgive  the  approver.  The  sweet  of  nature  is 
love  ;  yet  if  I  have  a  friend,  I  am  tormented  by  my 
imperfections.  The  love  of  me  accuses  the  other 
party.  If  he  were  high  enough  to  slight  me,  then 
could  I  love  him,  and  rise  by  my  affection  to  new 
heights.  A  man's  growth  is  seen  in  the  successive 
choirs  of  his  friends.  For  every  friend  whom  he 
loses  for  truth,  he  gains  a  better.  I  thought,  as  I 
walked  in  the  woods  and  mused  on  my  friends,  why 
should  I  play  with  them  this  game  of  idolatry  ?  I 
know  and  see  too  well,  when  not  voluntarily  blind, 
the  speedy  limits  of  persons  called  high  and  worthy. 
Rich,  noble,  and  great  they  are  by  the  liberality  of 
our  speech,  but  truth  is  sad.  O  blessed  Spirit,  whom 
I  forsake  for  these,  they  are  not  thee  !  Every  per 
sonal  consideration  that  we  allow,  costs  us  heavenly 
state.  We  sell  the  thrones  of  angels  for  a  short  and 
turbulent  pleasure. 

How  often  must  we  learn  this  lesson  ?  Men  cease 
to  interest  us  when  we  find  their  limitations.  The 
only  sin  is  limitation.  As  soon  as  you  once  come  up 
with  a  man's  limitations,  it  is  all  over  with  him.  Has 


CIRCLES.  255 

he  talents  ?  has  he  enterprises  ?  has  he  knowledge  ? 
it  boots  not.  Infinitely  alluring  and  attractive  was  he 
to  you  yesterday,  a  great  hope,  a  sea  to  swim  in  ; 
now,  you  have  found  his  shores,  found  it  a  pond,  and 
you  care  not  if  you  never  see  it  again. 

Each  new  step  we  take  in  thought  reconciles  twenty 
seemingly  discordant  facts,  as  expressions  of  one  law. 
Aristotle  and  Plato  are  reckoned  the  respective  heads 
of  two  schools.  A  wise  man  will  see  that  Aristotle 
Platonizes.  By  going  one  step  farther  back  in  thought, 
discordant  opinions  are  reconciled,  by  being  seen  to 
be  two  extremes  of  one  principle,  and  we  can  never 
go  so  far  back  as  to  preclude  a  still  higher  vision. 

Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a  thinker  on 
this  planet.  Then  all  things  are  at  risk.  It  is  as 
when  a  conflagration  has  broken  out  in  a  great  city, 
and  no  man  knows  what  is  safe,  or  where  it  will  end. 
There  is  not  a  piece  of  science,  but  its  flank  may  be 
turned  to-morrow ;  there  is  not  any  literary  reputa 
tion,  not  the  so-called  eternal  names  of  fame,  that 
may  not  be  revised  and  condemned.  The  very  hopes 
of  man,  the  thoughts  of  his  heart,  the  religion  of  na 
tions,  the  manners  and  morals  of  mankind,  are  all  at 
the  mercy  of  a  new  generalization.  Generalization 
is  always  a  new  influx  of  the  divinity  into  the  mind. 
Hence  the  thrill  that  attends  it. 

Valor  consists  in  the  power  of  self-recovery,  so  that 
a  man  cannot  have  his  flank  turned,  cannot  be  out 
generaled,  but  put  him  where  you  will,  he  stands,. 
This  can  only  be  by  his  preferring  truth  to  his  past 
apprehension  of  truth  ;  and  his  alert  acceptance  of  it 


256  ESSAY    X. 

from  whatever  quarter ;  the  intrepid  conviction  that 
his  laws,  his  relations  to  society,  his  Christianity,  his 
world,  may  at  any  time  be  superseded  and  decease. 

There  are  degrees  in  idealism.  We  learn  first  to 
play  with  it  academically,  as  the  magnet  was  once  a 
toy.  Then  we  see  in  the  heyday  of  youth  and  poetry 
that  it  may  be  true,  that  it  is  true  in  gleams  and  frag 
ments.  Then,  its  countenance  waxes  stern  and  grand, 
and  we  see  that  it  must  be  true.  It  now  shows  itself 
ethical  and  practical.  We  learn  that  God  is  ;  that  he 
is  in  me  ;  and  that  all  things  are  shadows  of  him. 
The  idealism  of  Berkeley  is  only  a  crude  statement  of 
the  idealism  of  Jesus,  and  that,  again,  is  a  crude  state 
ment  of  the  fact  that  all  nature  is  the  rapid  efflux  of 
goodness  executing  and  organizing  itself.  Much  more 
obviously  is  history  and  the  state  of  the  world  at  any 
one  time,  directly  dependent  on  the  intellectual  clas 
sification  then  existing  in  the  minds  of  men.  The 
things  which  are  dear  to  men  at  this  hour,  are  so  on 
account  of  the  ideas  which  have  emerged  on  their 
mental  horizon,  and  which  cause  the  present  order  of 
things  as  a  tree  bears  its  apples.  A  new  degree  of 
culture  would  instantly  revolutionize  the  entire  system 
of  human  pursuits. 

Conversation  is  a  game  of  circles.  In  conversa 
tion  we  pluck  up  the  termini  which  bound  the  com 
mon  of  silence  on  every  side.  The  parties  are  not  to 
be  judged  by  the  spirit  they  partake  and  even  express 
under  this  Pentecost.  To-rnorrow  they  will  have  re 
ceded  from  this  high-water  mark.  To-morrow  you 
shall  find  them  stooping  under  the  old  packsaddles. 


CIRCLES.  257 

Yet  let  us  enjoy  the  cloven  flame  whilst  it  glows  on 
our  walls.  When  each  new  speaker  strikes  a  new 
light,  emancipates  us  from  the  oppression  of  the  last 
speaker,  to  oppress  us  with  the  greatness  and  exclu- 
siveness  of  his  own  thought,  then  yields  us  to  ano 
ther  redeemer,  we  seem  to  recover  our  rights,  to  be 
come  men.  O  what  truths  profound  and  executable 
only  in  ages  and  orbs,  are  supposed  in  the  announce 
ment  of  every  truth  !  In  common  hours,  society  sits 
cold  and  statuesque.  We  all  stand  waiting,  empty,  — 
knowing,  possibly,  that  we  can  be  full,  surrounded 
by  mighty  symbols  which  are  not  symbols  to  us,  but 
prose  and  trivial  toys.  Then  cometh  the  god,  and 
converts  the  statues  into  fiery  men,  and  by  a  flash  of 
his  eye  burns  up  the  veil  which  shrouded  all  things, 
and  the  meaning  of  the  very  furniture,  of  cup  and 
saucer,  of  chair  and  clock  and  tester,  is  manifest. 
The  facts  which  loomed  so  large  in  the  fogs  of 
yesterday,  —  property,  climate,  breeding,  personal 
beauty,  and  the  like,  have  strangely  changed  their 
proportions.  All  that  we  reckoned  settled,  shakes 
now  and  rattles ;  and  literatures,  cities,  climates,  reli 
gions,  leave  their  foundations,  and  dance  before  our 
eyes.  And  yet  here  again  see  the  swift  circumscrip 
tion.  Good  as  is  discourse,  silence  is  better,  and 
shames  it.  The  length  of  the  discourse  indicates  the 
distance  of  thought  betwixt  the  speaker  and  the  hearer. 
If  they  were  at  a  perfect  understanding  in  any  part, 
no  words  would  be  necessary  thereon.  If  at  one  in 
all  parts,  no  words  would  be  suffered. 

Literature  is  a  point  outside  of  our  hodiernal  circle, 


258  ESSAY  X. 

through  which  a  new  one  may  be  described.  The 
use  of  literature  is  to  afford  us  a  platform  whence  we 
may  command  a  view  of  our  present  life,  a  purchase 
by  which  we  may  move  it.  We  fill  ourselves  with 
ancient  learning;  install  ourselves  the  best  we  can  in 
Greek,  in  Punic,  in  Roman  houses,  only  that  we  may 
wiselier  see  French,  English,  and  American  houses 
and  modes  of  living.  In  like  manner,  we  see  litera 
ture  best  from  the  midst  of  wild  nature,  or  from  the 
din  of  affairs,  or  from  a  high  religion.  The  field  can 
not  be  well  seen  from  within  the  field.  The  astrono 
mer  must  have  his  diameter  of  the  earth's  orbit  as 
a  base  to  find  the  parallax  of  any  star. 

Therefore,  we  value  the  poet.  All  the  argument, 
and  all  the  wisdom,  is  not  in  the  encyclopedia,  or  the 
treatise  on  metaphysics,  or  the  Body  of  Divinity,  but 
in  the  sonnet  or  the  play.  In  my  daily  work  I  incline 
to  repeat  my  old  steps,  and  do  not  believe  in  remedial 
force,  in  the  power  of  change  and  reform.  But  some 
Petrarch  or  Ariosto,  filled  with  the  new  wine  of  his 
imagination,  writes  me  an  ode,  or  a  brisk  romance,  full 
of  daring  thought  and  action.  He  smites  and  arouses 
me  with  his  shrill  tones,  breaks  up  my  whole  chain  of 
habits,  and  I  open  my  eye  on  my  own  possibilities. 
He  claps  wings  to  the  sides  of  all  the  solid  old  lum 
ber  of  the  world,  and  I  am  capable  once  more  of 
choosing  a  straight  path  in  theory  and  practice. 

We  have  the  same  need  to  command  a  view  of  the 
religion  of  the  world.  We  can  never  see  Christianity 
from  the  catechism  :  —  from  the  pastures,  from  a  boat 
in  the  pond,  from  amidst  the  songs  of  wood-birds,  we 


CIRCLES.  259 

possibly  may.  Cleansed  by  the  elemental  light  and 
wind,  steeped  in  the  sea  of  beautiful  forms  which  the 
field  offers  us,  we  may  chance  to  cast  a  right  glance 
back  upon  biography.  Christianity  is  rightly  dear  to 
the  best  of  mankind  ;  yet  was  there  never  a  young 
philosopher  whose  breeding  had  fallen  into  the  christ- 
ian  church,  by  whom  that  brave  text  of  Paul's,  was 
not  specially  prized,  "  Then  shall  also  the  Son  be 
subject  unto  Him  who  put  all  things  under  him,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all."  Let  the  claims  and  virtues 
of  persons  be  never  so  great  and  welcome,  the  instinct 
of  man  presses  eagerly  onward  to  the  impersonal  and 
illimitable,  and  gladly  arms  itself  against  the  dogmat 
ism  of  bigots  with  this  generous  word,  out  of  the  book 
itself. 

The  natural  world  may  be  conceived  of  as  a  sys 
tem  of  concentric  circles,  and  we  now  and  then  de 
tect  in  nature  slight  dislocations,  which  apprize  us  that 
this  surface  on  which  we  now  stand,  is  not  fixed,  but 
sliding.  These  manifold  tenacious  qualities,  this  chem 
istry  and  vegetation,  these  metals  and  animals,  which 
seem  to  stand  there  for  their  own  sake,  are  means 
and  methods  only,  are  words  of  God,  and  as  fugitive 
as  other  words.  Has  the  naturalist  or  chemist  learned 
his  craft,  who  has  explored  the  gravity  of  atoms  and 
the  elective  affinities,  who  has  not  yet  discerned  the 
deeper  law  whereof  this  is  only  a  partial  or  approx 
imate  statement,  namely,  that  like  draws  to  like  ;  and 
that  the  goods  which  belong  to  you,  gravitate  to  you, 
and  need  not  be  pursued  with  pains  and  cost  ?  Yet 
is  that  statement  approximate  also,  and  not  final. 


260  ESSAY   X. 

Omnipresence  is  a  higher  fact.  Not  through  subtle, 
subterranean  channels,  need  friend  and  fact  be  drawn 
to  their  counterpart,  but,  rightly  considered,  these 
things  proceed  from  the  eternal  generation  of  the  soul. 
Cause  and  effect  are  two  sides  of  one  fact. 

The  same  law  of  eternal  procession  ranges  all  that 
we  call  the  virtues,  and  extinguishes  each  in  the  light 
of  a  better.  The  great  man  will  not  be  prudent  in 
the  popular  sense  ;  all  his  prudence  will  be  so  much 
deduction  from  his  grandeur.  But  it  behoves  each  to 
see  when  he  sacrifices  prudence,  to  what  god  he  de 
votes  it ;  if  to  ease  and  pleasure,  he  had  better  be 
prudent  still  :  if  to  a  great  trust,  he  can  well  spare 
his  mule  and  panniers,  who  has  a  winged  chariot  in 
stead.  Geoffrey  draws  on  his  boots  to  go  through  the 
woods,  that  his  feet  may  be  safer  from  the  bite  of 
snakes  ;  Aaron  never  thinks  of  such  a  peril.  In 
many  years,  neither  is  harmed  by  such  an  accident. 
Yet  it  seerns  to  me  that  with  every  precaution  you 
take  against  such  an  evil,  you  put  yourself  into  the 
power  of  the  evil.  I  suppose  that  the  highest  pru 
dence  is  the  lowest  prudence.  Is  this  too  sudden  a 
rushing  from  the  centre  to  the  verge  of  our  orbit  ? 
Think  how  many  times  we  shall  fall  back  into  pitiful 
calculations,  before  we  take  up  our  rest  in  the  great 
sentiment,  or  make  the  verge  of  to-day  the  new  cen 
tre.  Besides,  your  bravest  sentiment  is  familiar  to 
the  humblest  men.  The  poor  and  the  low  have  their 
way  of  expressing  the  last  facts  of  philosophy  as  well 
as  you.  "  Blessed  be  nothing,"  and  "  the  worse 
things  are,  the  better  they  are,"  are  proverbs  which 
express  the  transcendentalism  of  common  life. 


CIRCLES.  261 

One  man's  justice  is  another's  injustice  ;  one  man's 
beauty,  another's  ugliness  ;  one  man's  wisdom,  an 
other's  folly,  as  one  beholds  the  same  objects  from  a 
higher  point  of  view.  One  man  thinks  justice  con 
sists  in  paying  debts,  and  has  no  measure  in  his  ab 
horrence  of  another  who  is  very  remiss  in  this  duty, 
and  makes  the  creditor  wait  tediously.  But  that  se 
cond  man  has  his  own  way  of  looking  at  things  ;  asks 
himself,  which  debt  must  I  pay  first,  the  debt  to  the 
rich,  or  the  debt  to  the  poor  ?  the  debt  of  money,  or 
the  debt  of  thought  to  mankind,  of  genius  to  nature  ? 
For  you,  O  broker,  there  is  no  other  principle  but 
arithmetic.  For  me,  commerce  is  of  trivial  import ; 
love,  faith,  truth  of  character,  the  aspiration  of  man, 
these  are  sacred  :  nor  can  I  detach  one  duty,  like  you, 
from  all  other  duties,  and  concentrate  my  forces  me 
chanically  on  the  payment  of  moneys.  Let  me  live 
onward :  you  shall  find  that,  though  slower,  the  pro 
gress  of  rny  character  will  liquidate  all  these  debts 
without  injustice  to  higher  claims.  If  a  man  should 
dedicate  himself  to  the  payment  of  notes,  would  not 
this  be  injustice  ?  Owes  he  no  debt  but  money  ? 
And  are  all  claims  on  him  to  be  postponed  to  a  land 
lord's  or  a  banker's  ? 

There  is  no  virtue  which  is  final ;  all  are  initial. 
The  virtues  of  society  are  vices  of  the  saint.  The 
terror  of  reform  is  the  discovery  that  we  must  cast 
away  our  virtues,  or  what  we  have  always  esteemed 
such,  into  the  same  pit  that  has  consumed  our  grosser 
vices. 

"  Forgive  his  crimes,  forgive  his  virtues  too, 
Those  smaller  faults,  half  converts  to  the  right." 


262  ESSAY    X. 

It  is  the  highest  power  of  divine  moments  that  they 
abolish  our  contritions  also.  I  accuse  myself  of  sloth 
and  unprofitableness,  day  by  day  ;  but  when  these 
waves  of  God  flow  into  me,  I  no  longer  reckon  lost 
time.  I  no  longer  poorly  compute  my  possible  achieve 
ment  by  what  remains  to  me  of  the  month  or  the 
year ;  for  these  moments  confer  a  sort  of  omnipres 
ence  and  omnipotence,  which  asks  nothing  of  dura 
tion,  but  sees  that  the  energy  of  the  mind  is  commen 
surate  with  the  work  to  be  done,  without  time. 

And  thus,  O  circular  philosopher,  I  hear  some 
reader  exclaim,  you  have  arrived  at  a  fine  pyrrhon- 
ism,  at  an  equivalence  and  indifferency  of  all  actions, 
and  would  fain  teach  us,  that,  if  we  are  true,  forsooth, 
our  crimes  may  be  lively  stones  out  of  which  we  shall 
construct  the  temple  of  the  true  God. 

I  am  not  careful  to  justify  myself.  I  own  I  am 
gladdened  by  seeing  the  predominance  of  the  saccha 
rine  principle  throughout  vegetable  nature,  and  not 
less  by  beholding  in  morals  that  unrestrained  inunda 
tion  of  the  principle  of  good  into  every  chink  and 
hole  that  selfishness  has  left  open,  yea,  into  selfish 
ness  and  sin  itself ;  so  that  no  evil  is  pure  ;  nor  hell 
itself  without  its  extreme  satisfactions.  But  lest  I 
should  mislead  any  when  I  have  my  own  head,  and 
obey  my  whims,  let  me  remind  the  reader  that  I  am 
only  an  experimenter.  Do  not  set  the  least  value  on 
what  I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what  I  do  not,  as 
if  I  pretended  to  settle  anything  as  true  or  false.  I 
unsettle  all  things.  No  facts  are  to  me  sacred  ;  none 
are  profane  ;  I  simply  experiment,  an  endless  seeker, 
with  no  Past  at  my  back. 


CIRCLES.  263 

Yet  this  incessant  movement  and  progression,  which 
all  things  partake,  could  never  become  sensible  to  us, 
but  by  contrast  to  some  principle  of  fixture  or  stability 
in  the  soul.  Whilst  the  eternal  generation  of  circles 
proceeds,  the  eternal  generator  abides.  That  central 
life  is  somewhat  superior  to  creation,  superior  to 
knowledge  and  thought,  and  contains  all  its  circles, 
Forever  it  labors  to  create  a  life  and  thought  as  large 
and  excellent  as  itself ;  but  in  vain ;  for  that  which  is 
made,  instructs  how  to  make  a  better. 

Thus  there  is  no  sleep,  no  pause,  no  preservation, 
but  all  things  renew,  germinate,  and  spring.  Why 
should  we  import  rags  and  relics  into  the  new  hour  ? 
Nature  abhors  the  old,  and  old  age  seems  the  only 
disease  :  all  others  run  into  this  one.  We  call  it  by 
many  names,  fever,  intemperance,  insanity,  stupidity, 
and  crime  :  they  are  all  forms  of  old  age  :  they  are 
rest,  conservatism,  appropriation,  inertia,  not  new 
ness,  not  the  way  onward.  We  grizzle  every  day, 
I  see  no  need  of  it.  Whilst  we  converse  with  what 
is  above  us,  we  do  not  grow  old,  but  grow  young, 
Infancy,  youth,  receptive,  aspiring,  with  religious 
eye  looking  upward,  counts  itself  nothing,  and  aban 
dons  itself  to  the  instruction  flowing  from  all  sides. 
But  the  man  and  woman  of  seventy,  assume  to  know 
all ;  throw  up  their  hope  ;  renounce  aspiration ;  ac 
cept  the  actual  for  the  necessary  ;  and  talk  down  to 
the  young.  Let  them  then  become  organs  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  let  them  be  lovers ;  let  them  behold 
truth  ;  and  their  eyes  are  uplifted,  their  wrinkles 
smoothed,  they  are  perfumed  again  with  hope  and 


264  ESSAY     X. 

power.  This  old  age  ought  not  to  creep  on  a  human 
mind.  In  nature,  every  moment  is  new  ;  the  past  is 
always  swallowed  and  forgotten  ;  the  coming  only  is 
sacred.  Nothing  is  secure  but  life,  transition,  the  en 
ergizing  spirit.  No  love  can  be  bound  by  oath  or 
covenant  to  secure  it  against  a  higher  love.  No  truth 
so  sublime  but  it  may  be  trivial  tomorrow  in  the  light 
of  new  thoughts.  People  wish  to  be  settled  :  only  as 
far  as  they  are  unsettled,  is  there  any  hope  for  them. 

Life  is  a  series  of  surprises.  We  do  not  guess  to 
day  the  mood,  the  pleasure,  the  power  of  to-morrow, 
when  we  are  building  up  our  being.  Of  lower  states,  — 
of  acts  of  routine  and  sense,  we  can  tell  somewhat, 
but  the  masterpieces  of  God,  the  total  growths,  and 
universal  movements  of  the  soul,  he  hideth ;  they  are 
incalculable.  I  can  know  that  truth  is  divine  and 
helpful,  but  how  it  shall  help  me,  I  can  have  no  guess, 
for,  so  to  be  is  the  sole  inlet  of  so  to  know.  The  new 
position  of  the  advancing  man  has  all  the  powers  of 
the  old,  yet  has  them  all  new.  It  carries  in  its  bosom 
all  the  energies  of  the  past,  yet  is  itself  an  exhalation 
of  the  morning.  I  cast  away  in  this  new  moment  all 
my  once  hoarded  knowledge,  as  vacant  and  vain. 
Now,  for  the  first  time,  seem  I  to  know  any  thing 
rightly.  The  simplest  words,  —  we  do  not  know 
what  they  mean,  except  when  we  love  and  aspire. 

The  difference  between  talents  and  character  is 
adroitness  to  keep  the  old  and  trodden  round,  and 
power  and  courage  to  make  a  new  road  to  new  and 
better  goals.  Character  makes  an  overpowering  pres 
ent,  a  cheerful,  determined  hour,  which  fortifies  all 


CIRCLES.  265 

the  company,  by  making  them  see  that  much  is  pos 
sible  and  excellent,  that  was  not  thought  of.  Charac 
ter  dulls  the  impression  of  particular  events.  When 
we  see  the  conqueror,  we  do  not  think  much  of  any 
one  battle  or  success.  We  see  that  we  had  exagger 
ated  the  difficulty.  It  was  easy  to  him.  The  great 
man  is  not  convulsible  or  torrnentable.  He  is  so 
much,  that  events  pass  over  him  without  much  im 
pression.  People  say  sometimes,  l  See  what  I  have 
overcome  ;  see  how  cheerful  I  am  ;  see  how  com 
pletely  I  have  triumphed  over  these  black  events.' 
Not  if  they  still  remind  me  of  the  black  event,  — 
they  have  not  yet  conquered.  Is  it  conquest  to  be  a 
gay  and  decorated  sepulchre,  or  a  half-crazed  widow 
hysterically  laughing  ?  True  conquest  is  the  causing 
the  black  event  to  fade  and  disappear  as  an  early 
cloud  of  insignificant  result  in  a  history  so  large  and 
advancing. 

The  one  thing  which  we  seek  with  insatiable  desire, 
is  to  forget  ourselves,  to  be  surprised  out  of  our  pro 
priety,  to  lose  our  sempiternal  memory,  and  to  do 
something  without  knowing  how  or  why  ;  in  short,  to 
draw  a  new  circle.  Nothing  great  was  ever  achieved 
without  enthusiasm.  The  way  of  life  is  wonderful. 
It  is  by  abandonment.  The  great  moments  of  his 
tory  are  the  facilities  of  performance  through  the 
strength  of  ideas,  as  the  works  of  genius  and  religion. 
"  A  man,"  said  Oliver  Cromwell,  "  never  rises  so  high 
as  when  he  knows  not  whither  he  is  going."  Dreams 
and  drunkenness,  the  use  of  opium  and  alcohol  are 
12 


266  ESSAY    X. 

& 

the  semblance  and  counterfeit  of  this  oracular  genius, 
and  hence  their  dangerous  attraction  for  men.  For  the 
like  reason,  they  ask  the  aid  of  wild  passions,  as  in 
gaming  and  war,  to  ape  in  some  manner  these  flames 
and  generosities  of.  the  heart. 


INTELLECT 


ESSAY    XI. 


INTELLECT 


EVERY  substance  is  negatively  electric  to  that  which 
stands  above  it  in  the  chemical  tables,  positively  to 
that  which  stands  below  it.  Water  dissolves  wood 
and  stone,  and  salt ;  air  dissolves  water  ;  electric  fire 
dissolves  air,  but  the  intellect  dissolves  fire,  gravity, 
laws,  method,  and  the  subtlest  unnamed  relations  of 
nature  in  its  resistless  menstruum.  Intellect  lies  be 
hind  genius,  which  is  intellect  constructive.  Intellect 
is  the  simple  power  anterior  to  all  action  or  construc 
tion.  Gladly  would  I  unfold  in  calm  degrees  a  nat 
ural  history  of  the  intellect,  but  what  man  has  yet 
been  able  to  mark  the  steps  and  boundaries  of  that 
transparent  essence  ?  The  first  questions  are  always 
to  be  asked,  and  the  wisest  doctor  is  gravelled  by  the 
inquisitiveness  of  a  child.  How  can  we  speak  of  the 
action  of  the  mind  under  any  divisions,  as,  of  its 
knowledge,  of  its  ethics,  of  its  works,  and  so  forth, 


270  ESSAY    XI. 

since  it  melts  will  into  perception,  knowledge  into  act? 
Each  becomes  the  other.  Itself  alone  is.  Its  vision 
is  not  like  the  vision  of  the  eye,  but  is  union  with  the 
things  known. 

Intellect  and  intellection  signify,  to  the  common  ear 
consideration  of  abstract  truth.  The  consideration  of 
time  and  place,  of  you  and  me,  of  profit  and  hurt, 
tyrannize  over  most  men's  minds.  Intellect  separates 
the  fact  considered  from  you,  from  all  local  and  per 
sonal  reference,  and  discerns  it  as  if  it  existed  for  its 
own  sake.  Heraclitus  looked  upon  the  affections  as 
dense  and  colored  mists.  In  the  fog  of  good  and 
evil  affections,  it  is  hard  for  man  to  walk  forward  in 
a  straight  lino.  Intellect  is  void  of  affection,  and 
sees  an  object  as  it  stands  in  the  light  of  science,  cool 
and  disengaged.  The  intellect  goes  out  of  the  indi 
vidual,  floats  over  its  own  personality,  and  regards  it 
as  a  fact,  and  not  as  I  and  mine.  He  who  is  immersed 
in  what  concerns  person  or  place,  cannot  see  the  prob 
lem  of  existence.  This  the  intellect  always  ponders. 
Nature  shows  all  things  formed  and  bound.  The  in 
tellect  pierces  the  form,  overleaps  the  wall,  detects 
intrinsic  likeness  between  remote  things,  and  reduces 
all  things  into  a  few  principles. 

The  making  a  fact  the  subject  of  thought,  raises  it. 
All  that  mass  of  mental  and  moral  phenomena  which 
we  do  not  make  objects  of  voluntary  thought,  come 
within  the  power  of  fortune  ;  they  constitute  the  cir 
cumstance  of  daily  life ;  they  are  subject  to  change, 
to  fear,  and  hope.  Every  man  beholds  his  human 
condition  with  a  degree  of  melancholy.  As  a  ship 


INTELLECT.  271 

aground  is  battered  by  the  waves,  so  man,  imprisoned 
in  mortal  life,  lies  open  to  the  mercy  of  coming  events. 
But  a  truth,  separated  by  the  intellect,  is  no  longer  a 
subject  of  destiny.  We  behold  it  as  a  god  upraised 
above  care  and  fear.  And  so  any  fact  in  our  life,  or 
any  record  of  our  fancies  or  reflections,  disentangled 
from  the  web  of  our  unconsciousness,  becomes  an 
object  impersonal  and  immortal.  It  is  the  past  re 
stored,  but  embalmed.  A  better  art  than  that  of  Egypt 
has  taken  fear  and  corruption  out  of  it.  It  is  evisce 
rated  of  care.  It  is  offered  for  science.  What  is 
addressed  to  us  for  contemplation  does  not  threaten 
us,  but  makes  us  intellectual  beings. 

The  growth  of  the  intellect  is  spontaneous  in  every 
step.  The  mind  that  grows  could  not  predict  the 
times,  the  means,  the  mode  of  that  spontaneity.  God 
enters  by  a  private  door  into  every  individual.  Long 
prior  to  the  age  of  reflection,  is  the  thinking  of  the 
mind.  Out  of  darkness,  it  came  insensibly  into  the 
marvellous  light  of  to-day.  Over  it  always  reigned  a 
firm  law.  In  the  period  of  infancy  it  accepted  and 
disposed  of  all  impressions  from  the  surrounding 
creation  after  its  own  way.  Whatever  any  mind  doth 
or  saith,  is  after  a  law.  It  has  no  random  act  or 
word.  And  this  native  law  remains  over  it  after  it 
has  come  to  reflection  or  conscious  thought.  In  the 
most  worn,  pedantic,  introverted,  self-tormentor's  life, 
the  greatest  part  is  incalculable  by  him,  unforeseen, 
unimaginable,  and  must  be,  until  he  can  take  himself 
up  by  his  own  ears.  What  am  I  ?  What  has  my 
will  done  to  make  me  that  I  am  ?  Nothing.  I  have 


272  ESSAY    XI. 

been  floated  into  this  thought,  this  hour,  this  connection 
of  events,  by  might  and  mind  sublime,  and  my  inge 
nuity  and  wilfulness  have  not  thwarted,  have  not  aided 
to  an  appreciable  degree. 

Our  spontaneous  action  is  always  the  best.  You 
cannot,  with  your  best  deliberation  and  heed,  come 
so  close  to  any  question  as  your  spontaneous  glance 
shall  bring  you,  whilst  you  rise  from  your  bed,  or 
walk  abroad  in  the  morning  after  meditating  the  mat 
ter  before  sleep,  on  the  previous  night.  Always  our 
thinking  is  a  pious  reception.  Our  truth  of  thought 
is  therefore  vitiated  as  much  by  too  violent  direction 
given  by  our  will,  as  by  too  great  negligence.  We 
do  not  determine  what  we  will  think.  We  only  open 
our  senses,  clear  away,  as  we  can,  all  obstruction 
from  the  fact,  and  suffer  the  intellect  to  see.  We 
have  little  control  over  our  thoughts.  We  are  the 
prisoners  of  ideas.  They  catch  us  up  for  moments 
into  their  heaven,  and  so  fully  engage  us,  that  we  take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow,  gaze  like  children,  with 
out  an  effort  to  make  them  our  own.  By-and-by  we 
fall  out  of  that  rapture,  bethink  us  where  we  have 
been,  what  we  have  seen,  and  repeat,  as  truly  as  we 
can,  what  we  have  beheld.  As  far  as  we  can  recall 
these  extasies,  we  carry  away  in  the  ineffaceable  mem 
ory,  the  result,  and  all  men  and  all  the  ages  confirm  it. 
It  is  called  Truth.  But  the  moment  we  cease  to  report, 
and  attempt  to  correct  and  contrive,  it  is  not  truth. 

If  we  consider  what  persons  have  stimulated  and 
profited  us,  we  shall  perceive  the  superiority  of  the 
spontaneous  or  intuitive  principle  over  the  arithmeti- 


INTELLECT.  273 

cal  or  logical.  The  first  always  contains  the  second, 
but  virtual  and  latent.  We  want,  in  every  man,  a  long 
logic  ;  we  cannot  pardon  the  absence  of  it,  but  it  must 
not  be  spoken.  Logic  is  the  procession  or  propor 
tionate  unfolding  of  the  intuition ;  but  its  virtue  is  as 
silent  method  ;  the  moment  it  would  appear  as  propo 
sitions,  and  have  a  separate  value,  it  is  worthless. 

In  every  man's  mind,  some  images,  words,  and 
facts  remain,  without  effort  on  his  part  to  imprint 
them,  which  others  forget,  and  afterwards  these  illus 
trate  to  him  important  laws.  All  our  progress  is  an 
unfolding,  like  the  vegetable  bud.  You  have  first  an 
instinct,  then  an  opinion,  then  a  knowledge,  as  the 
plant  has  root,  bud,  and  fruit.  Trust  the  instinct  to 
the  end,  though  you  can  render  no  reason.  It  is  vain 
to  hurry  it.  By  trusting  it  to  the  end,  it  shall  ripen 
into  truth,  and  you  shall  know  why  you  believe. 

Each  mind  has  its  own  method.  A  true  man  never 
acquires  after  college  rules.  What  you  have  aggre 
gated  in  a  natural  manner,  surprizes  and  delights 
when  it  is  produced.  For  we  cannot  oversee  each 
other's  secret.  And  hence  the  differences  between 
men  in  natural  endowment  are  insignificant  in  com 
parison  with  their  common  wealth.  Do  you  think  the 
porter  and  the  cook  have  no  anecdotes,  no  experi 
ences,  no  wonders  for  you?  Every  body  knows  as 
much  as  the  savant.  The  walls  of  rude  minds  are 
scrawled  all  over  with  facts,  with  thoughts.  They 
shall  one  day  bring  a  lantern  and  read  the  inscrip 
tions.  Every  man,  in  the  degree  in  which  he  has  wit 
and  culture,  finds  his  curiosity  inflamed  concerning 
12* 


274  ESSAY    XI. 

the  modes  of  living  and  thinking  of  other  men,  and 
especially  of  those  classes  whose  minds  have  not  been 
subdued  by  the  drill  of  school  education. 

This  instinctive  action  never  ceases  in  a  healthy 
mind,  but  becomes  richer  and  more  frequent  in  its 
informations  through  all  states  of  culture.  At  last 
comes  the  era  of  reflection,  when  we  not  only  observe, 
but  take  pains  to  observe  ;  when  we  of  set  purpose, 
sit  down  to  consider  an  abstract  truth  ;  when  we  keep 
the  mind's  eye  open,  whilst  we  converse,  whilst  we 
read,  whilst  we  act,  intent  to  learn  the  secret  law  of 
some  class  of  facts. 

What  is  the  hardest  task  in  the  world  ?  To  think. 
I  would  put  myself  in  the  attitude  to  look  in  the  eye 
an  abstract  truth,  and  I  cannot.  I  blench  and  with 
draw  on  this  side  and  on  that.  I  seem  to  know  what 
he  meant,  who  said,  No  man  can  see  God  face  to 
face  and  live.  For  example,  a  man  explores  the 
basis  of  civil  government.  Let  him  intend  his 
mind  without  respite,  without  rest,  in  one  direction. 
His  best  heed  long  time  avails  him  nothing.  Yet 
thoughts  are  flitting  before  him.  We  all  but  appre 
hend,  we  dimly  forebode  the  truth.  We  say,  I  will 
walk  abroad,  and  the  truth  will  take  form  and 
clearness  to  me.  We  go  forth,  but  cannot  find  it. 
It  seems  as  if  we  needed  only  the  stillness  and  com 
posed  attitude  of  the  library,  to  seize  the  thought. 
But  we  come  in,  and  are  as  far  from  it  as  at  first. 
Then,  in  a  moment,  and  unannounced,  the  truth  ap 
pears.  A  certain,  wandering  light  appears,  and  is  the 
distinction,  the  principle  we  wanted.  But  the  oracle 


INTELLECT.  275 

comes,  because  we  had  previously  laid  siege  to  the 
shrine.  It  seems  as  if  the  law  of  the  intellect  resembled 
that  law  of  nature  by  which  we  now  inspire,  now  expire 
the  breath  ;  by  which  the  heart  now  draws  in,  then  hurls 
out  the  blood,  —  the  law  of  undulation.  So  now  you 
must  labor  with  your  brains,  and  now  you  must  forbear 
your  activity,  and  see  what  the  great  Soul  showeth. 

Our  intellections  are  mainly  prospective.  The  im 
mortality  of  man  is  as  legitimately  preached  from  the 
intellections  as  from  the  moral  volitions.  Every  in 
tellection  is  mainly  prospective.  Its  present  value  is 
its  least.  It  is  a  little  seed.  Inspect  what  delights 
you  in  Plutarch,  in  Shakspeare,  in  Cervantes.  Each 
truth  that  a  writer  acquires,  is  a  lantern  which  he  in 
stantly  turns  full  on  what  facts  and  thoughts  lay 
already  in  his  mind,  and  behold,  all  the  mats  and  rub 
bish  which  had  littered  his  garret,  become  precious. 
Every  trivial  fact  in  his  private  biography  becomes  an 
illustration  of  this  new  principle,  revisits  the  day,  and 
delights  all  men  by  its  piquancy  and  new  charm. 
Men  say,  where  did  he  get  this  ?  and  think  there  was 
something  divine  in  his  life.  But  no ;  they  have 
myriads  of  facts  just  as  good,  would  they  only  get  a 
lamp  to  ransack  their  attics  withal. 

We  are  all  wise.  The  difference  between  persons 
is  not  in  wisdom  but  in  art.  I  knew,  in  an  academi 
cal  club,  a  person  who  always  deferred  to  me,  who, 
seeing  my  whim  for  writing,  fancied  that  my  experi 
ences  had  somewhat  superior  ;  whilst  I  saw  that  his 
experiences  were  as  good  as  mine.  Give  them  to 
me,  and  I  would  make  the  same  use  of  them.  He 


276  ESSAY    XI. 

held  the  old  ;  he  holds  the  new ;  I  had  the  habit  of 
tacking  together  the  old  and  the  new,  which  he  did 
not  use  to  exercise.  This  may  hold  in  the  great  ex 
amples.  Perhaps  if  we  should  meet  Shakspeare,  we 
should  not  be  conscious  of  any  steep  inferiority  ;  no : 
but  of  a  great  equality,  —  only  that  he  possessed  a 
strange  skill  of  using,  of  classifying  his  facts,  which  we 
lacked.  For,  notwithstanding  our  utter  incapacity  to 
produce  anything  like  Hamlet  and  Othello,  see  the  per 
fect  reception  this  wit,  and  immense  knowledge  of  life, 
and  liquid  eloquence  find  in  us  all. 

If  you  gather  apples  in  the  sunshine,  or  make  hay, 
or  hoe  corn,  and  then  retire  within  doors,  and  shut 
your  eyes,  and  press  them  with  your  hand,  you  shall 
still  see  apples  hanging  in  the  bright  light,  with  boughs 
and  leaves  thereto,  or  the  tasselled  grass,  or  the  corn- 
flags,  and  this  for  five  or  six  hours  afterwards.  There 
lie  the  impressions  on  the  retentive  organ,  though  you 
knew  it  not.  So  lies  the  whole  series  of  natural  im 
ages  with  which  your  life  has  made  you  acquainted, 
in  your  memory,  though  you  know  it  not,  and  a  thrill 
of  passion  flashes  light  on  their  dark  chamber,  and 
the  active  power  seizes  instantly  the  fit  image,  as  the 
word  of  its  momentary  thought. 

It  is  long  ere  we  discover  how  rich  we  are.  Our 
history,  we  are  sure,  is  quite  tame.  We  have  nothing 
to  write,  nothing  to  infer.  But  our  wiser  years  still 
run  back  to  the  despised  recollections  of  childhood,  and 
always  we  are  fishing  up  some  wonderful  article  out 
of  that  pond ;  until,  by-and-by,  we  begin  to  suspect 
that  the  biography  of  the  one  foolish  person  we  know, 


INTELLECT.  277 

is,  in  reality,  nothing  less  "than  the  miniature  para 
phrase  of  the  hundred  volumes  of  the  Universal 
History. 

In  the  intellect  constructive,  which  we  popularly 
designate  by  the  word  Genius,  we  observe  the  same 
balance  of  two  elements,  as  in  intellect  receptive. 
The  constructive  intellect  produces  thoughts,  sen 
tences,  poems,  plans,  designs,  systems.  It  is  the  gen 
eration  of  the  mind,  the  marriage  of  thought  with 
nature.  To  genius  must  always  go  two  gifts,  the 
thought  and  the  publication.  The  first  is  revelation, 
always  a  miracle,  which  no  frequency  of  occurrence, 
or  incessant  study  can  ever  familiarize,  but  which 
must  always  leave  the  inquirer  stupid  with  wonder. 
It  is  the  advent  of  truth  into  the  world,  a  form  of 
thought  now,  for  the  first  time,  bursting  into  the  uni 
verse,  a  child  of  the  old  eternal  soul,  a  piece  of  gen 
uine  and  immeasurable  greatness.  It  seems,  for  the 
time,  to  inherit  all  that  has  yet  existed,  and  to  dictate 
to  the  unborn.  It  affects  every  thought  of  man,  and 
goes  to  fashion  every  institution.  But  to  make  it 
available,  it  needs  a  vehicle  or  art  by  which  it  is  con 
veyed  to  men.  To  be  communicable,  it  must  become 
picture  or  sensible  object.  We  must  learn  the  lan 
guage  of  facts.  The  most  wonderful  inspirations  die 
with  their  subject,  if  he  has  no  hand  to  paint  them  to 
the  senses.  The  ray  of  light  passes  invisible  through 
space,  and  only  when  it  falls  on  an  object  is  it  seen. 
When  the  spiritual  energy  is  directed  on  something 
outward,  then  is  it  a  thought.  The  relation  between 
it  and  you,  first  makes  you,  the  value  of  you,  apparent 


278  ESSAY    XI. 

# 

to  me.  The  rich,  inventive  genius  of  the  painter 
must  be  smothered  and  lost  for  want  of  the  power  of 
drawing,  and  in  our  happy  hours,  we  should  be  inex 
haustible  poets,  if  once  we  could  break  through  the 
silence  into  adequate  rhyme.  As  all  men  have  some 
access  to  primary  truth,  so  all  have  some  art  or  power 
of  communication  in  their  head,  but  only  in  the  artist 
does  it  descend  into  the  hand.  There  is  an  inequality 
whose  laws  we  do  not  yet  know,  between  two  men 
and  between  two  moments  of  the  same  man,  in  respect 
to  this  faculty.  In  common  hours,  we  have  the  same 
facts  as  in  the  uncommon  or  inspired,  but  they  do  not  sit 
for  their  portraits,  they  are  not  detached,  but  lie  in  a  web. 
The  thought  of  genius  is  spontaneous  ;  but  the  power 
of  picture  or  expression,  in  the  most  enriched  and 
flowing  nature,  implies  a  mixture  of  will,  a  certain 
control  over  the  spontaneous  states,  without  which  no 
production  is  possible.  It  is  a  conversion  of  all  na 
ture  into  the  rhetoric  of  thought,  under  the  eye  of 
judgment,  with  a  strenuous  exercise  of  choice.  And 
yet  the  imaginative  vocabulary  seems  to  be  spontane 
ous  also.  It  does  not  flow  from  experience  only  or 
mainly,  but  from  a  richer  source.  Not  by  any  con 
scious  imitation  of  particular  forms  are  the  grand 
strokes  of  the  painter  executed,  but  by  repairing  to 
the  fountain-head  of  all  forms  in  his  mind.  Who  is 
the  first  drawing-master  ?  Without  instruction  we 
know  very  well  the  ideal  of  the  human  form.  A 
child  knows  if  an  arm  or  a  leg  be  distorted  in  a  pic 
ture,  if  the  attitude  be  natural,  or  grand,  or  mean, 
though  he  has  never  received  any  instruction  in  draw- 


INTELLECT.  279 

ing,  or  heard  any  conversation  on  the  subject,  nor  can 
himself  draw  with  correctness  a  single  feature.  A 
good  form  strikes  all  eyes  pleasantly,  long  before  they 
have  any  science  on  the  subject,  and  a  beautiful  face 
sets  twenty  hearts  in  palpitation,  prior  to  all  conside 
ration  of  the  mechanical  proportions  of  the  features 
and  head.  We  may  owe  to  dreams  some  light  on 
the  fountain  of  this  skill  ;  for,  as  soon  as  we  let  our 
will  go,  and  let  the  unconscious  states  ensue,  see  what 
cunning  draughtsmen  we  are !  We  entertain  our 
selves  with  wonderful  forms  of  men,  of  women,  of 
animals,  of  gardens,  of  woods,  and  of  monsters,  and 
the  mystic  pencil  wherewith  we  then  draw,  has  no 
awkwardness  or  inexperience,  no  meagreness  or  pov 
erty  ;  it  can  design  well,  and  group  well ;  its  composi 
tion  is  full  of  art,  its  colors  are  well  laid  on,  and  the 
whole  canvass  which  it  paints,  is  life-like,  and  apt  to 
touch  us  with  terror,  with  tenderness,  with  desire,  and 
with  grief.  Neither  are  the  artist's  copies  from  ex 
perience,  ever  mere  copies,  but  always  touched  and 
softened  by  tints  from  this  ideal  domain. 

The  conditions  essential  to  a  constructive  mind,  do 
not  appear  to  be  so  often  combined  but  that  a  good 
sentence  or  verse  remains  fresh  and  memorable  for  a 
long  time.  Yet  when  we  write  with  ease,  and  come 
out  into  the  free  air  of  thought,  we  seem  to  be  assured 
that  nothing  is  easier  than  to  continue  this  communi^ 
cation  at  pleasure.  Up,  down,  around,  the  kingdom 
of  thought  has  no  enclosures,  but  the  Muse  makes  us 
free  of  her  city.  Well,  the  world  has  a  million  wri 
ters.  One  would  think,  then,  that  good  thought  would 


280  ESSAY    XI. 

be  as  familiar  as  air  and  water,  and  the  gifts  of  each 
new  hour  would  exclude  the  last.  Yet  we  can  count 
all  our  good  books ;  nay,  I  remember  any  beautiful 
verse  for  twenty  years.  It  is  true  that  the  discerning 
intellect  of  the  world  is  always  greatly  in  advance  of 
the  creative,  so  that  always  there  are  many  compe 
tent  judges  of  the  best  book,  and  few  writers  of  the 
best  books.  But  some  of  the  conditions  of  intellectual 
construction  are  of  rare  occurrence.  The  intellect  is 
a  whole,  and  demands  integrity  in  every  work.  This 
is  resisted  equally  by  a  man's  devotion  to  a  single 
thought,  and  by  his  ambition  to  combine  too  many. 

Truth  is  our  element  of  life,  yet  if  a  man  fasten 
his  attention  on  a  single  aspect  of  truth,  and  apply 
himself  to  that  alone  for  a  long  time,  the  truth  becomes 
distorted  and  not  itself,  but  falsehood  ;  herein  resem 
bling  the  air,  which  is  our  natural  element,  and  the 
breath  of  our  nostrils,  but  if  a  stream  of  the  same  be 
directed  on  the  body  for  a  time,  it  causes  cold,  fever, 
and  even  death.  How  wearisome  the  grammarian, 
the  phrenologist,  the  political  or  religious  fanatic,  or 
indeed  any  possessed  mortal,  whose  balance  is  lost 
by  the  exaggeration  of  a  single  topic.  It  is  incipient 
insanity.  Every  thought  is  a  prison  also.  I  cannot 
see  what  you  see,  because  I  am  caught  up  by  a  strong 
wind  and  blown  so  far  in  one  direction,  that  I  am  out 
of  the  hoop  of  your  horizon. 

Is  it  any  better,  if  the  student,  to  avoid  this  offence, 
and  to  liberalize  himself,  aims  to  make  a  mechanical 
whole,  of  history,  or  science,  or  philosophy,  by  a  nu 
merical  addition  of  all  the  facts  that  fall  within  his 


INTELLECT.  281 

vision  ?  The  world  refuses  to  be  analyzed  by  addi 
tion  and  subtraction.  When  we  are  young,  we  spend 
much  time  and  pains  in  filling  our  note-books  with  all 
definitions  of  Religion,  Love,  Poetry,  Politics,  Art,  in 
the  hope  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  we  shall 
have  condensed  into  our  encyclopedia,  the  net  value 
of  all  the  theories  at  which  the  world  has  yet  arrived. 
But  year  after  year  our  tables  get  no  completeness, 
and  at  last  we  discover  that  our  curve  is  a  parabola, 
whose  arcs  will  never  meet. 

Neither  by  detachment,  neither  by  aggregation,  is 
the  integrity  of  the  intellect  transmitted  to  its  works, 
but  by  a  vigilance  which  brings  the  intellect  in  its 
greatness  and  best  state  to  operate  every  moment. 
It  must  have  the  same  wholeness  which  nature  has.  Al 
though  no  diligence  can  rebuild  the  universe  in  a 
model,  by  the  best  accumulation  or  disposition  of  de 
tails,  yet  does  the  world  reappear  in  miniature  in 
every  event,  so  that  all  the  laws  of  nature  may  be 
read  in  the  smallest  fact.  The  intellect  must  have 
the  like  perfection  in  its  apprehension,  and  in  its  works. 
For  this  reason,  an  index  or  mercury  of  intellectual 
proficiency  is  the  perception  of  identity.  We  talk 
with  accomplished  persons  who  appear  to  be  strangers 
in  nature.  The  cloud,  the  tree,  the  turf,  the  bird  are 
not  theirs,  have  nothing  of  them  :  the  world  is  only 
their  lodging  and  table.  But  the  poet,  whose  verses 
are  to  be  spheral  and  complete,  is  one  whom  nature 
cannot  deceive,  whatsoever  face  of  strangeness  she 
may  put  on.  He  feels  a  strict  consanguinity,  and  de 
tects  more  likeness  than  variety  in  all  her  changes. 


282  ESSAY   XI. 

We  are  stung  by  the  desire  for  new  thought,  but  when 
we  receive  a  new  thought,  it  is  only  the  old  thought 
with  a  new  face,  and  though  we  make  it  our  own,  we 
instantly  crave  another  ;  we  are  not  really  enriched. 
For  the  truth  was  in  us,  before  it  was  reflected  to  us 
from  natural  objects  ;  and  the  profound  genius  will 
cast  the  likeness  of  all  creatures  into  every  product 
of  his  wit. 

But  if  the  constructive  powers  are  rare,  and  it  is 
given  to  few  men  to  be  poets,  yet  every  man  is  a  re 
ceiver  of  this  descending  holy  ghost,  and  may  well 
study  the  laws  of  its  influx.  Exactly  parallel  is  the 
whole  rule  of  intellectual  duty,  to  the  rule  of  moral 
duty.  A  self-denial,  no  less  austere  than  the  saint's, 
is  demanded  of  the  scholar.  He  must  worship  truth, 
and  forego  all  things  for  that,  and  choose  defeat  and  pain, 
so  that  his  treasure  in  thought  is  thereby  augmented. 

God  offers  to  every  mind  its  choice  between  truth 
and  repose.  Take  which  you  please,  —  you  can 
never  have  both.  Between  these,  as  a  pendulum, 
man  oscillates  ever.  He  in  whom  the  love  of  repose 
predominates,  will  accept  the  first  creed,  the  first 
philosophy,  the  first  political  party  he  meets,  —  most 
likely,  his  father's.  He  gets  rest,  commodity,  and 
reputation  ;  but  he  shuts  the  door  of  truth.  He  in 
whom  the  love  of  truth  predominates,  will  keep  him 
self  aloof  from  all  moorings  and  afloat.  He  will  ab 
stain  from  dogmatism,  and  recognise  all  the  opposite 
negations  between  which,  as  walls,  his  being  is  swung. 
He  submits  to  the  inconvenience  of  suspense  and 
imperfect  opinion,  but  he  is  a  candidate  for  truth,  as 


INTELLECT.  283 

the  other  is  not,  and  respects  the  highest  law  of  his 
being. 

The  circle  of  the  green  earth  he  must  measure 
with  his  shoes,  to  find  the  man  who  can  yield  him 
truth.  He  shall  then  know  that  there  is  somewhat 
more  blessed  and  great  in  hearing  than  in  speaking. 
Happy  is  the  hearing  man  :  unhappy  the  speaking 
man.  As  long  as  I  hear  truth,  I  am  bathed  by  a 
beautiful  element,  and  am  not  conscious  of  any  limits 
to  my  nature.  The  suggestions  are  thousandfold  that 
I  hear  and  see.  The  waters  of  the  great  deep  have 
ingress  and  egress  to  the  soul.  But  if  I  speak,  I  de 
fine,  I  confine,  and  am  less.  When  Socrates  speaks, 
Lysis  and  Menexenus  are  afflicted  by  no  shame  that 
they  do  not  speak.  They  also  are  good.  He  like 
wise  defers  to  them,  loves  them,  whilst  he  speaks. 
Because  a  true  and  natural  man  contains  and  is  the 
same  truth  which  an  eloquent  man  articulates  :  but  in 
the  eloquent  man,  because  he  can  articulate  it,  it 
seems  something  the  less  to  reside,  and  he  turns  to 
these  silent  beautiful  with  the  more  inclination  and 
respect.  The  ancient  sentence  said,  Let  us  be  silent, 
for  so  are  the  gods.  Silence  is  a  solvent  that  destroys 
personality,  and  gives  us  leave  to  be  great  and  uni 
versal.  Every  man's  progress  is  through  a  succes 
sion  of  teachers,  each  of  whom  seems  at  the  time  to 
have  a  superlative  influence,  but  it  at  last  gives  place 
to  a  new.  Frankly  let  him  accept  it  all.  Jesus  says, 
Leave  father,  mother,  house  and  lands,  and  follow  me. 
Who  leaves  all,  receives  more.  This  is  as  true  intel 
lectually,  as  morally.  Each  new  mind  we  approach, 


284  ESSAY    XI. 

seems  to  require  an  abdication  of  all  our  past  and 
present  possessions.  A  new  doctrine  seems,  at  first, 
a  subversion  of  all  our  opinions,  tastes,  and  manner 
of  living.  Sucb  has  Swedenborg,  such  has  Kant,  such 
has  Coleridge,  such  has  Cousin  seemed  to  many 
young  men  in  this  country.  Take  thankfully  and 
heartily  all  they  can  give.  Exhaust  them,  wrestle 
with  them,  let  them  not  go  until  their  blessing  be  won, 
and  after  a  short  season,  the  dismay  will  be  overpast, 
the  excess  of  influence  withdrawn,  and  they  will  be 
no  longer  an  alarming  meteor,  but  one  more  bright 
star  shining  serenely  in  your  heaven,  and  blending  its 
light  with  all  your  day. 

But  whilst  he  gives  himself  up  unreservedly  to  that 
which  draws  him,  because  that  is  his  own,  he  is  to 
refuse  himself  to  that  which  draws  him  not,  whatso 
ever  fame  and  authority  may  attend  it,  because  it  is 
not  his  own.  Entire  self-reliance  belongs  to  the  in 
tellect.  One  soul  is  a  counterpoise  of  all  souls,  as  a 
capillary  column  of  water  is  a  balance  for  the  sea. 
It  must  treat  things,  and  books,  and  sovereign  genius, 
as  itself  also  a  sovereign.  If  ^Eschylus  be  that  man 
he  is  taken  for,  he  has  not  yet  done  his  office,  when 
he  has  educated  the  learned  of  Europe  for  a  thousand 
years.  He  is  now  to  approve  himself  a  master  of 
delight  to  me  also.  If  he  cannot  do  that,  all  his  fame 
shall  avail  him  nothing  with  me.  I  were  a  fool  not  to 
sacrifice  a  thousand  ^Eschyluses  to  my  intellectual 
integrity.  Especially  take  the  same  ground  in  regard 
to  abstract  truth,  the  science  of  the  mind.  The  Ba 
con,  the  Spinoza,  the  Hume,  Schelling,  Kant,  or  who- 


INTELLECT.  285 

soever  propounds  to  you  a  philosophy  of  the  mind,  is 
only  a  more  or  less  awkward  translator  of  things  in 
your  consciousness,  which  you  have  also  your  way  of 
seeing,  perhaps  of  denominating.  Say  then,  instead 
of  too  timidly  poring  into  his  obscure  sense,  that  he 
has  not  succeeded  in  rendering  back  to  you  your  con 
sciousness.  He  has  not  succeeded  ;  now  let  another 
try.  If  Plato  cannot,  perhaps  Spinoza  will.  If 
Spinoza  cannot,  then  perhaps  Kant.  Any  how,  when  at 
last  it  is  done,  you  will  find  it  is  no  recondite,  but  a 
simple,  natural,  common  state,  which  the  writer  re 
stores  to  you. 

But"  let  us  end  these  didactics.  I  will  not,  though 
the  subject  might  provoke  it,  speak  to  the  open  ques 
tion  between  Truth  and  Love.  I  shall  not  presume 
to  interfere  in  the  old  politics  of  the  skies  ;  "  The 
cherubim  know  most ;  the  seraphim  love  most." 
The  gods  shall  settle  their  own  quarrels.  But  I  can 
not  recite,  even  thus  rudely,  laws  of  the  intellect, 
without  remembering  that  lofty  and  sequestered  class 
of  men  who  have  been  its  prophets  and  oracles,  the 
high  priesthood  of  the  pure  reason,  the  Trismegisti, 
the  expounders  of  the  principles  of  thought  from  age 
to  age.  When  at  long  intervals,  we  turn  over  their 
abstruse  pages,  wonderful  seems  the  calm  and  grand 
air  of  these  few,  these  great  spiritual  lords,  who  have 
walked  in  the  world,  —  these  of  the  old  religion, — 
dwelling  in  a  worship  which  makes  the  sanctities  of 
Christianity  look  parvenues  and  popular ;  for  "  persua 
sion  is  in  soul,  but  necessity  is  in  intellect."  This 
band  of  grandees,  Hermes,  Heraclitus,  Empedocles, 


286  ESSAY    XI. 

'9 

Plato,  Plotinus,  Olympiodorus,  Proclus,  Synesius, 
and  the  rest,  have  somewhat  so  vast  in  their  logic,  so 
primary  in  their  thinking,  that  it  seems  antecedent  to 
all  the  ordinary  distinctions  of  rhetoric  and  literature, 
and  to  be  at  once  poetry,  and  music,  and  dancing, 
and  astronomy,  and  mathematics.  I  am  present  at 
the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  the  world.  With  a  geom 
etry  of  sunbeams,  the  soul  lays  the  foundations  of 
nature.  The  truth  and  grandeur  of  their  thought  is 
proved  by  its  scope  and  applicability,  for  it  commands 
the  entire  schedule  and  inventory  of  things,  for  its 
illustration.  But  what  marks  its  elevation,  and  has 
even  a  comic  look  to  us,  is  the  innocent  serenity  with 
which  these  babe-like  Jupiters  sit  in  their  clouds,  and 
from  age  to  age  prattle  to  each  other,  and  to  no  con 
temporary.  Well  assured  that  their  speech  is  intelli 
gible,  and  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  they 
add  thesis  to  thesis,  without  a  moment's  heed  of 
the  universal  astonishment  of  the  human  race  below, 
who  do  not  comprehend  their  plainest  argument ;  nor 
do  they  ever  relent  so  much  as  to  insert  a  popular  or 
explaining  sentence  ;  nor  testify  the  least  displeasure 
or  petulance  at  the  dulness  of  their  amazed  auditory. 
The  angels  are  so  enamored  of  the  language  that  is 
spoken  in  heaven,  that  they  will  not  distort  their  lips 
with  the  hissing  and  unmusical  dialects  of  men,  but 
speak  their  own,  whether  there  be  any  who  understand 
it  or  not. 


ART. 


ESSAY    XII 
ART. 


BECAUSE  the  soul  is  progressive,  it  never  quite  repeats 
itself,  but  in  every  act  attempts  the  production  of  a 
new  and  fairer  whole.  This  appears  in  works  both 
of  the  useful  and  the  fine  arts,  if  we  employ  the  popular 
distinction  of  works  according  to  their  aim,  either  at 
use  or  beauty.  Thus  in  our  fine  arts,  not  imitation, 
but  creation  is  the  aim.  In  landscapes,  the  painter 
should  give  the  suggestion  of  a  fairer  creation  than 
we  know.  The  details,  the  prose  of  nature  he  should 
omit,  and  give  us  only  the  spirit  and  splendor.  He 
should  know  that  the  landscape  has  beauty  for  his 
eye,  because  it  expresses  a  thought  which  is  to  him 
good :  and  this,  because  the  same  power  which  sees 
through  his  eyes,  is  seen  in  that  spectacle ;  and  he 
will  come  to  value  the  expression  of  nature,  and  not 
nature  itself,  and  so  exalt  in  his  copy,  the  features 
that  please  him.  He  will  give  the  gloom  of  gloom, 
13 


290  ESSAY    XII. 

and  the  sunshine  of  sunshine.  In  a  portrait,  he  must 
inscribe  the  character,  and  not  the  features,  and  must 
esteem  the  man  who  sits  to  him  as  himself  only  an 
imperfect  picture  or  likeness  of  the  aspiring  original 
within. 

What  is  that  abridgment  and  selection  we  observe 
in  all  spiritual  activity,  but  itself  the  creative  impulse  ? 
for  it  is  the  inlet  of  that  higher  illumination  which 
teaches  to  convey  a  larger  sense  by  simpler  symbols. 
What  is  a  man  but  nature's  finer  success  in  self-expli 
cation  ?  What  is  a  man  but  a  finer  and  compacter 
landscape,  than  the  horizon  figures  ;  nature's  eclecti 
cism  ?  and  what  is  his  speech,  his  love  of  painting, 
love  of  nature,  but  a  still  finer  success  ?  all  the  weary 
miles  and  tons  of  space  and  bulk  left  out,  and  the 
spirit  or  moral  of  it  contracted  into  a  musical  word, 
or  the  most  cunning  stroke  of  the  pencil  ? 

But  the  artist  must  employ  the  symbols  in  use  in 
his  day  and  nation,  to  convey  his  enlarged  sense  to 
his  fellow-men.  Thus  the  new  in  art  is  always 
formed  out  of  the  old.  The  Genius  of  the  Hour 
always  sets  his  ineffaceable  seal  on  the  work,  and 
gives  it  an  inexpressible  charm  for  the  imagina 
tion.  As  far  as  the  spiritual  character  of  the 
period  overpowers  the  artist,  and  finds  expression  in 
his  work,  so  far  it  will  always  retain  a  certain  gran 
deur,  and  will  represent  to  future  beholders  the  Un 
known,  the  Inevitable,  the  Divine.  No  man  can  quite 
exclude  this  element  of  Necessity  from  his  labor.  No 
man  can  quite  emancipate  himself  from  his  age  and 
country,  or  produce  a  model  in  which  the  education, 


ART.  291 

the  religion,  the  politics,  usages,  and  arts,  of  his  times 
shall  have  no  share.  Though  he  were  never  so  ori 
ginal,  never  so  wilful  and  fantastic,  he  cannot  wipe 
out  of  his  work  every  trace  of  the  thoughts  amidst 
which  it  grew.  The  very  avoidance  betrays  the 
usage  he  avoids.  Above  his  will,  and  out  of  his  sight, 
he  is  necessitated,  by  the  air  he  breathes,  and  the  idea 
on  which  he  and  his  contemporaries  live  and  toil, 
to  share  the  manner  of  his  times,  without  knowing 
what  that  manner  is.  Now  that  which  is  inevitable 
in  the  work,  has  a  higher  charm  than  individual  talent 
can  ever  give,  inasmuch  as  the  artist's  pen  or  chisel 
seems  to  have  been  held  and  guided  by  a  gigantic 
hand  to  inscribe  a  line  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race.  This  circumstance  gives  a  value  to  the  Egypt 
ian  hieroglyphics,  to  the  Indian,  Chinese,  and  Mexican 
idols,  however  gross  and  shapeless.  They  denote  the 
height  of  the  human  soul  in  that  hour,  and  were  not 
fantastic,  but  sprung  from  a  necessity  as  deep  as  the 
world.  Shall  I  now  add  that  the  whole  extant  product 
of  the  plastic  arts  has  herein  its  highest  value,  as  his 
tory  ;  as  a  stroke  drawn  in  the  portrait  of  that  fate, 
perfect  and  beautiful,  according  to  whose  ordinations 
all  beings  advance  to  their  beatitude. 

Thus,  historically  viewed,  it  has  been  the  office 
of  art  to  educate  the  perception  of  beauty.  We  are 
immersed  in  beauty,  but  our  eyes  have  no  clear  vision. 
It  needs,  by  the  exhibition  of  single  traits,  to  assist  and 
lead  the  dormant  taste.  We  carve  and  paint,  or  we 
behold  what  is  carved  and  painted,  as  students  of  the 
mystery  of  Form.  The  virtue  of  art  lies  in  detach- 


292  ESSAY  xn. 

f 

ment,  in  sequestering  one  object  from  the  embarrass 
ing  variety.  Until  one  thing  comes  out  from  the 
connection  of  things,  there  can  be  enjoyment,  con 
templation,  but  no  thought.  Our  happiness  and  un- 
happiness  are  unproductive.  The  infant  lies  in  a 
pleasing  trance,  but  his  individual  character,  and  his 
practical  power  depend  on  his  daily  progress  in  the 
separation  of  things,  and  dealing  with  one  at  a  time. 
Love  and  all  the  passions  concentrate  all  existence 
around  a  single  form.  It  is  the  habit  of  certain  minds 
to  give  an  all-excluding  fulness  to  the  object,  the  thought, 
the  word,  they  alight  upon,  and  to  make  that  for  the 
time  the  deputy  of  the  world.  These  are  the  artists, 
the  orators,  the  leaders  of  society.  The  power  to 
detach,  and  to  magnify  by  detaching,  is  the  essence 
of  rhetoric  in  the  hands  of  the  orator  and  the  poet. 
This  rhetoric,  or  power  to  fix  the  momentary  emi- 
nency  of  an  object,  so  remarkable  in  Burke,  in  By 
ron,  in  Carlyle,  —  the  painter  and  sculptor  exhibit  in 
color  and  in  stone.  The  power  depends  on  the  depth 
of  the  artist's  insight  of  that  object  he  contemplates. 
For  every  object  has  its  roots  in  central  nature,  and 
may  of  course  be  so  exhibited  to  us  as  to  represent 
the  world.  Therefore,  each  work  of  genius  is  the 
tyrant  of  the  hour,  and  concentrates  attention  on 
itself.  For  the  time,  it  is  the  only  thing  worth  naming, 
to  do  that,  —  be  it  a  sonnet,  an  opera,  a  landscape,  a 
statue,  an  oration,  the  plan  of  a  temple,  of  a  cam 
paign,  or  of  a  voyage  of  discovery.  Presently  we 
pass  to  some  other  object,  which  rounds  itself  into  a 
whole,  as  did  the  first ;  for  example,  a  well  laid  gar- 


ART. 


den :  and  nothing  seems  worth  doing  but  the  laying 
out  of  gardens.  I  should  think  fire  the  best  thing  in 
the  world,  if  1  were  not  acquainted  with  air,  and  wa 
ter,  and  earth.  For  it  is  the  right  and  property  of  all 
natural  objects,  of  all  genuine  talents,  of  all  native 
properties  whatsoever,  to  be  for  their  moment  the  top 
of  the  world.  A  squirrel  leaping  from  bough  to 
bough,  and  making  the  wood  but  one  wide  tree  for 
his  pleasure,  fills  the  eye  not  less  than  a  lion,  is  beau 
tiful,  self-sufficing,  and  stands  then  and  there  for  na 
ture.  A  good  ballad  draws  my  ear  and  heart  whilst 
I  listen,  as  much  as  an  epic  has  done  before.  A  dog, 
drawn  by  a  master,  or  a  litter  of  pigs,  satisfies,  and 
is  a  reality  not  less  than  the  frescoes  of  Angelo.  From 
this  succession  of  excellent  objects,  learn  we  at  last 
the  immensity  of  the  world,  the  opulence  of  human 
nature,  which  can  run  out  to  infinitude  in  any  direction. 
But  I  also  learn  that  what  astonished  and  fascinated 
me  in  the  first  work,  astonished  me  in  the  second 
work  also,  that  excellence  of  all  things  is  one. 

The  office  of  painting  and  sculpture  seems  to  be 
merely  initial.  The  best  pictures  can  easily  tell  us 
their  last  secret.  The  best  pictures  are  rude  draughts 
of  a  few  of  the  miraculous  dots  and  lines  and  dyes 
which  make  up  the  ever-changing  "  landscape  with 
figures  "  amidst  which  we  dwell.  Painting  seems  to 
be  to  the  eye  what  dancing  is  to  the  limbs.  When 
that  has  educated  the  frame  to  self-possession,  to 
nimbleness,  to  grace,  the  steps  of  the  dancing-master 
are  better  forgotten ;  so  painting  teaches  me  the 
splendor  of  color  and  the  expression  of  form,  and,  as 


294  ESSAY    XII. 

I  see  many  pictures  and  higher  genius  in  the  art,  I 
see  the  boundless  opulence  of  the  pencil,  the  indiffer- 
ency  in  which  the  artist  stands  free  to  choose  out  of 
the  possible  forms.  If  he  can  draw  every  thing,  why 
draw  any  thing  ?  and  then  is  my  eye  opened  to  the 
eternal  picture  which  nature  paints  in  the  street  with 
moving  men  and  children,  beggars,  and  fine  ladies, 
draped  in  red,  and  green,  and  blue,  and  gray  ;  long 
haired,  grizzled,  white-faced,  black-faced,  wrinkled, 
giant,  dwarf,  expanded,  elfish,  —  capped  and  based 
by  heaven,  earth,  and  sea. 

A  gallery  of  sculpture  teaches  more  austerely  the 
same  lesson.  As  picture  teaches  the  coloring,  so 
sculpture  the  anatomy  of  form.  When  I  have  seen 
fine  statues,  and  afterwards  enter  a  public  assembly, 
I  understand  well  what  he  meant  who  said,  "  When 
I  have  been  reading  Homer,  all  men  look  like  giants." 
I  too  see  that  painting  and  sculpture  are  gymnastics 
of  the  eye,  its  training  to  the  niceties  and  curiosities 
of  its  function.  There  is  no  statue  like  this  living 
man,  with  his  infinite  advantage  over  all  ideal  sculp 
ture,  of  perpetual  variety.  What  a  gallery  of  art 
have  I  here  !  No  mannerist  made  these  varied  groups 
and  diverse  original  single  figures.  Here  is  the  artist 
himself  improvising,  grim  and  glad,  at  his  block. 
Now  one  thought  strikes  him,  now  another,  and  with 
each  moment  he  alters  the  whole  air,  attitude  and 
expression  of  his  clay.  Away  with  your  nonsense  of 
oil  and  easels,  of  marble  and  chisels :  except  to  open 
your  eyes  to  the  witchcraft  of  eternal  art,  they  are 
hypocritical  rubbish. 


ART.  295 

The  reference  of  all  production  at  last  to  an  Abo 
riginal  Power,  explains  the  traits  common  to  all  works 
of  the  highest  art,  that  they  are  universally  intelligi 
ble  ;  that  they  restore  to  us  the  simplest  states  of 
mind  ;  and  are  religious.  Since  what  skill  is  therein 
shown  is  the  reappearance  of  the  original  soul,  a  jet 
of  pure  light ;  it  should  produce  a  similar  impression 
to  that  made  by  natural  objects.  In  happy  hours, 
nature  appears  to  us  one  with  art ;  art  perfected, — 
the  work  of  genius.  And  the  individual  in  whom 
simple  tastes  and  susceptibility  to  all  the  great  human 
influences,  overpowers  the  accidents  of  a  local  and 
special  culture,  is  the  best  critic  of  art.  Though  we 
travel  the  world  over  to  find  the  beautiful,  we  must 
carry  it  with  us,  or  we  find  it  not.  The  best  of  beauty 
is  a  finer  charm  than  skill  in  surfaces,  in  outlines,  or 
rules  of  art  can  ever  teach,  namely,  a  radiation  from 
the  work  of  art,  of  human  character,  —  a  wonderful 
expression  through  stone  or  canvass  or  musical  sound 
of  the  deepest  and  simplest  attributes  of  our  nature, 
and  therefore  most  intelligible  at  last  to  those  souls 
which  have  these  attributes.  In  the  sculptures  of  the 
Greeks,  in  the  masonry  of  the  Romans,  and  in  the 
pictures  of  the  Tuscan  and  Venetian  masters,  the 
highest  charm  is  the  universal  language  they  speak, 
A  confession  of  moral  nature,  of  purity,  love,  and  hope, 
breathes  from  them  all.  That  which  we  carry  to  them, 
the  same  we  bring  back  more  fairly  illustrated  in  the 
memory.  The  traveller  who  visits  the  Vatican,  and 
passes  from  chamber  to  chamber  through  galleries  of 
statues,  vases,  sarcophagi,  and  candelabra,  through  all 


ESSAY    XII. 

;  & 

forms  of  beauty,  cut  in  the  richest  materials,  is  in  dan 
ger  of  forgetting  the  simplicity  of  the  principles  out  of 
which  they  all  sprung,  and  that  they  had  their  origin 
from  thoughts  and  laws  in  his  own  breast.  He  studies 
the  technical  rules  on  these  wonderful  remains,  but  for 
gets  that  these  works  were  not  always  thus  constel 
lated  ;  that  they  are  the  contributions  of  many  ages, 
and  many  countries  ;  that  each  came  out  of  the  soli 
tary  workshop  of  one  artist,  who  toiled  perhaps  in 
ignorance  of  the  existence  of  other  sculpture,  created 
his  work  without  other  model,  save  life,  household 
life,  and  the  sweet  and  smart  of  personal  relations,  of 
beating  hearts,  and  meeting  eyes,  of  poverty,  and 
necessity,  and  hope,  and  fear.  These  were  his  inspi 
rations,  and  these  are  the  effects  he  carries  home  to 
your  heart  and  mind.  In  proportion  to  his  force,  the 
artist  will  find  in  his  work  an  outlet  for  his  proper 
character.  He  must  not  be  in  any  manner  pinched 
or  hindered  by  his  material,  but  through  his  necessity 
of  imparting  himself,  the  adamant  will  be  wax  in  his 
hands,  and  will  allow  an  adequate  communication  of 
himself  in  his  full  stature  and  proportion.  Not  a 
conventional  nature  and  culture  need  he  cumber  him 
self  with,  nor  ask  what  is  the  mode  in  Rome  or  in 
Paris,  but  that  house,  and  weather,  and  manner  of 
living,  which  poverty  and  the  fate  of  birth  have  made 
at  once  so  odious  and  so  dear,  in  the  gray,  unpainted 
wood  cabin,  on  the  corner  of  a  New  Hampshire  farm, 
or  in  the  log  hut  of  the  backwoods,  or  in  the  narrow 
lodging  where  he  has  endured  the  constraints  and 
seeming  of  a  city  poverty,  —  will  serve  as  well  as 


ART.  297 

any  other  condition,  as  the  symbol  of  a  thought  which 
pours  itself  indifferently  through  all. 

I  remember,  when  in  my  younger  days,  I  had  heard 
of  the  wonders  of  Italian  painting,  I  fancied  the  great 
pictures  would  be  great  strangers  ;  some  surprising 
combination  of  color  and  form  ;  a  foreign  wonder, 
barbaric  pearl  and  gold,  like  the  spontoons  and  stand 
ards  of  the  militia,  which  play  such  pranks  in  the  eyes 
and  imaginations  of  school-boys.  I  was  to  see  and 
acquire  I  knew  not  what.  When  I  came  at  last  to 
Rome,  and  saw  with  eyes  the  pictures,  I  found  that 
genius  left  to  novices  the  gay  and  fantastic  and  os 
tentatious,  and  itself  pierced  directly  to  the  simple 
and  true  ;  that  it  was  familiar  and  sincere ;  that  it 
was  the  old,  eternal  fact  I  had  met  already  in  so  many 
forms  ;  unto  which  I  lived  ;  that  it  was  the  plain  you 
and  me  I  knew  so  well,  —  had  left  at  home  in  so 
many  conversations.  I  had  the  same  experience 
already  in  a  church  at  Naples.  There  I  saw  that 
nothing  was  changed  with  me  but  the  place,  and  said 
to  myself,  — '  Thou  foolish  child,  hast  thou  come 
out  hither,  over  four  thousand  miles  of  salt  water,  to 
find  that  which  was  perfect  to  thee,  there  at  home  ?  ' 
—  that  fact  I  saw  again  in  the  Academmia  at  Naples, 
in  the  chambers  of  sculpture,  and  yet  again  when  I 
came  to  Rome,  and  to  the  paintings  of  Raphael, 
Angelo,  Sacchi,  Titian,  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci. 
"  What  old  mole !  workest  thou  in  the  earth  so  fast?  " 
It  had  travelled  by  my  side  :  that  which  I  fancied  I 
had  left  in  Boston,  was  here  in  the  Vatican,  and  again 
at  Milan,  and  at  Paris,  and  made  all  travelling  ridicu- 


298  ESSAY    XII. 

lous  as  a  treadmill.  I  now  require  this  of  all  pictures, 
that  they  domesticate  me,  not  that  they  dazzle  me. 
Pictures  must  not  be  too  picturesque.  Nothing  aston 
ishes  men  so  much  as  common  sense  and  plain  deal 
ing.  All  great  actions  have  been  simple,  and  all 
great  pictures  are. 

The  Transfiguration,  by  Raphael,  is  an  eminent 
example  of  this  peculiar  merit.  A  calm,  benignant 
beauty  shines  over  all  this  picture,  and  goes  directly 
to  the  heart.  It  seems  almost  to  call  you  by  name. 
The  sweet  and  sublime  face  of  Jesus  is  beyond  praise, 
yet  how  it  disappoints  all  florid  expectations  !  This 
familiar,  simple,  home-speaking  countenance,  is  as  if 
one  should  meet  a  friend.  The  knowledge  of  picture- 
dealers  has  its  value,  but  listen  not  to  their  criticism 
when  your  heart  is  touched  by  genius.  It  was  not 
painted  for  them,  it  was  painted  for  you  ;  for  such  as 
had  eyes  capable  of  being  touched  by  simplicity  and 
lofty  emotions. 

Yet  when  we  have  said  all  our  fine  things  about 
the  arts,  we  must  end  with  a  frank  confession,  that 
the  arts,  as  we  know  them,  are  but  initial.  Our  best 
praise  is  given  to  what  they  aimed  and  promised,  not 
to  the  actual  result.  He  has  conceived  meanly  of 
the  resources  of  man,  who  believes  that  the  best  age 
of  production  is  past.  The  real  value  of  the  Iliad, 
or  the  Transfiguration,  is  as  signs  of  power  ;  billows 
or  ripples  they  are  of  the  great  stream  of  tendency  ; 
tokens  of  the  everlasting  effort  to  produce,  which 
even  in  its  worst  estate,  the  soul  betrays.  Art  has 
not  yet  come  to  its  maturity,  if  it  do  not  put  itself 


ART.  299 

abreast  with  the  most  potent  influences  of  the  world, 
if  it  is  not  practical  and  moral,  if  it  do  not  stand  in 
connection  with  the  conscience,  if  it  do  not  make  the 
poor  and  uncultivated  feel  that  it  addresses  them  with 
a  voice  of  lofty  cheer.  There  is  higher  work  for 
Art  than  the  arts.  They  are  abortive  births  of  an 
imperfect  or  vitiated  instinct.  Art  is  the  need  to  cre 
ate  ;  but  in  its  essence,  immense  and  universal,  it  is 
impatient  of  working  with  lame  or  tied  hands,  and  of 
making  cripples  and  monsters,  such  as  all  pictures 
and  statues  are.  Nothing  less  than  the  creation  of 
man  and  nature  is  its  end.  A  man  should  find  in  it 
an  outlet  for  his  whole  energy.  He  may  paint  and 
carve  only  as  long  as  he  can  do  that.  Art  should 
exhilarate,  and  throw  down  the  walls  of  circumstance 
on  every  side,  awakening  in  the  beholder  the  same 
sense  of  universal  relation  and  power  which  the  work 
evinced  in  the  artist,  and  its  highest  effect  is  to  make 
new  artists. 

Already  History  is  old  enough  to  witness  the  old 
age  and  disappearance  of  particular  arts.  The  art  of 
sculpture  is  long  ago  perished  to  any  real  effect.  It 
was  originally  an  useful  art,  a  mode  of  writing,  a 
savage's  record  of  gratitude  or  devotion,  and  among 
a  people  possessed  of  a  wonderful  perception  of  form, 
this  childish  carving  was  refined  to  the  utmost  splen 
dor  of  effect.  But  it  is  the  game  of  a  rude  and  youth 
ful  people,  and  not  the  manly  labor  of  a  wise  and 
spiritual  nation.  Under  an  oak  tree  loaded  with 
leaves  and  nuts,  under  a  sky  full  of  eternal  eyes,  I 
stand  in  a  thoroughfare  ;  but  in  the  works  of  our 


300  ESSAY    XII. 

plastic  arts,  and  especially  of  sculpture,  creation  is 
driven  into  a  corner.  I  cannot  hide  from  myself  that 
there  is  a  certain  appearance  of  paltriness,  as  of  toys, 
and  the  trumpery  of  a  theatre,  in  sculpture.  Nature 
transcends  all  our  moods  of  thought,  and  its  secret 
we  do  not  yet  find.  But  the  gallery  stands  at  the 
mercy  of  our  moods,  and  there  is  a  moment  when  it 
becomes  frivolous.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Newton, 
with  an  attention  habitually  engaged  on  the  path  of 
planets  and  suns,  should  have  wondered  what  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke  found  to  admire  in  "  stone  dolls." 
Sculpture  may  serve  to  teach  the  pupil  how  deep  is 
the  secret  of  form,  how  purely  the  spirit  can  translate 
its  meanings  into  that  eloquent  dialect.  But  the  statue 
will  look  cold  and  false  before  that  new  activity  which 
needs  to  roll  through  all  things,  and  is  impatient  of 
counterfeits,  and  things  not  alive.  Picture  and  sculp 
ture  are  the  celebrations  and  festivities  of  form.  But 
true  art  is  never  fixed,  but  always  flowing.  The 
sweetest  music  is  not  in  the  oratorio,  but  in  the  human 
voice  when  it  speaks  from  its  instant  life,  tones  of  ten 
derness,  truth,  or  courage.  The  oratorio  has  already 
lost  its  relation  to  the  morning,  to  the  sun,  and  the 
earth,  but  that  persuading  voice  is  in  tune  with  these. 
All  works  of  art  should  not  be  detached,  but  extem 
pore  performances.  A  great  man  is  a  new  statue  in 
every  attitude  and  action.  A  beautiful  woman  is  a 
picture  which  drives  all  beholders  nobly  mad.  Life 
may  be  lyric  or  epic,  as  well  as  a  poem  or  a  ro 
mance. 

A  true  announcement  of  the  law  of  creation,  if  a 


ART.  301 

man  were  found  worthy  to  declare  it,  would  carry 
art  up  into  the  kingdom  of  nature,  and  destroy  its 
separate  and  contrasted  existence.  The  fountains  of 
invention  and  beauty  in  modern  society  are  all  but 
dried  up.  A  popular  novel,  a  theatre,  or  a  ball-room 
makes  us  feel  that  we  are  all  paupers  in  the  alms- 
house  of  this  world,  without  dignity,  without  skill,  or 
industry.  Art  is  as  poor  and  low.  The  old  tragic 
Necessity,  which  lowers  on  the  brows  even  of  the 
Venuses  and  the  Cupids  of  the  antique,  and  furnishes 
the  sole  apology  for  the  intrusion  of  such  anomalous 
figures  into  nature,  —  namely,  that  they  were  inev 
itable  ;  that  the  artist  was  drank  with  a  passion  for  form 
which  he  could  not  resist,  and  which  vented  itself  in  these 
fine  extravagancies,  —  no  longer  dignifies  the  chisel  or 
the  pencil.  But  the  artist,  and  the  connoisseur,  now  seek 
in  art  the  exhibition  of  their  talent,  or  an  asylum  from 
the  evils  of  life.  Men  are  not  well  pleased  with  the  fig 
ure  they  make  in  their  own  imagination,  and  they  flee 
to  art,  and  convey  their  better  sense  in  an  oratorio,  a 
statue,  or  a  picture.  Art  makes  the  same  effort 
which  a  sensual  prosperity  makes,  namely,  to  detach 
the  beautiful  from  the  useful,  to  do  up  the  work  as 
unavoidable,  and  hating  it,  pass  on  to  enjoyment. 
These  solaces  and  compensations,  this  division  of 
beauty  from  use,  the  laws  of  nature  do  not  permit. 
As  soon  as  beauty  is  sought  not  from  religion  and 
love,  but  for  pleasure,  it  degrades  the  seeker.  High 
beauty  is  no  longer  attainable  by  him  in  canvass  or  in 
stone,  in  sound,  or  in  lyrical  construction  ;  an  effemi 
nate  prudent,  sickly  beauty,  which  is  not  beauty,  is  all 


ESSAY    XII. 

that  can  be  formed  ;  for  the  hand  can  never  execute 
any  thing  higher  than  the  character  can  inspire. 

The  art  that  thus  separates,  is  itself  first  separated. 
Art  must  not  be  a  superficial  talent,  but  must  begin 
farther  back  in  man.  Now  men  do  not  see  nature  to 
be  beautiful,  and  they  go  to  make  a  statue  which  shall 
be.  They  abhor  men  as  tasteless,  dull,  and  incon 
vertible,  and  console  themselves  with  color-bags,  and 
blocks  of  marble.  They  reject  life  as  prosaic,  and 
create  a  death  which  they  call  poetic.  They  despatch 
the  day's  weary  chores,  and  fly  to  voluptuous  reveries. 
They  eat  and  drink,  that  they  may  afterwards  execute 
the  ideal.  Thus  is  art  vilified  ;  the  name  conveys 
to  the  mind  its  secondary  and  bad  senses  ;  it  stands 
in  the  imagination,  as  somewhat  contrary  to  nature, 
and  struck  with  death  from  the  first.  Would  it  not 
be  better  to  begin  higher  up, — to  serve  the  ideal  be 
fore  they  eat  and  drink  ;  to  serve  the  ideal  in  eating 
and  drinking,  in  drawing  the  breath,  and  in  the  func 
tions  of  life  ?  Beauty  must  come  back  to  the  useful 
arts,  and  the  distinction  between  the  fine  and  the  use 
ful  arts  be  forgotten.  If  history  were  truly  told,  if 
life  were  nobly  spent,  it  would  be  no  longer  easy  or 
possible  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other.  In  na 
ture,  all  is  useful,  all  is  beautiful.  It  is  therefore 
beautiful,  because  it  is  alive,  moving,  reproductive  ; 
it  is  therefore  useful,  because  it  is  symmetrical  and 
fair.  Beauty  will  not  come  at  the  call  of  a  legisla 
ture,  nor  will  it  repeat  in  England  or  America,  its  his 
tory  in  Greece.  It  will  come,  as  always,  unannounced, 
and  spring  up  between  the  feet  of  brave  and  earnest 


ART.  303 

men.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  look  for  genius  to  reiterate 
its  miracles  in  the  old  arts ;  it  is  its  instinct  to  find 
beauty  and  holiness  in  new  and  necessary  facts,  in 
the  field  and  roadside,  in  the  shop  and  mill.  Pro 
ceeding  from  a  religious  heart  it  will  raise  to  a 
divine  use,  the  railroad,  the  insurance  office,  the 
joint  stock  company,  our  law,  our  primary  assemblies, 
our  commerce,  the  galvanic  battery,  the  electric  jar, 
the  prism,  and  the  chemist's  retort,  in  which  we  seek 
now  only  an  economical  use.  Is  not  the  selfish,  and 
even  cruel  aspect  which  belongs  to  our  great  mechan 
ical  works,  to  mills,  railways,  and  machinery,  the 
effect  of  the  mercenary  impulses  which  these  works 
obey  ?  When  its  errands  are  noble  and  adequate,  a 
steamboat  bridging  the  Atlantic  between  Old  and  New 
England,  and  arriving  at  its  ports  with  the  punctuality 
of  a  planet,  —  is  a  step  of  man  into  harmony  with 
nature.  The  boat  at  St.  Petersburgh,  which  plies 
along  the  Lena  by  magnetism,  needs  little  to  make  it 
sublime.  When  science  is  learned  in  love,  and  its 
powers  are  wielded  by  love,  they  will  appear  the 
supplements  and  continuations  of  the  material  crea 
tion. 


THE    END. 


Mf/ 
Wo 


